#stay for the subtle shade

[redwineconversation]

Danielle van de Donk Le Progrès Article (December 9, 2022)

Blah blah standard disclaimers apply. You've heard this speech before.

Some interesting stuff, some stuff we already knew. The cool thing about Le Progres is they always respect lines in the sand.

Van de Donk: "There is an atmosphere of only winning at Lyon"

Back on the field six months after her severe leg injury, Danielle van de Donk is looking forward to playing the biggest games at the end of 2022, between the Champions League and this duel in the league against PSG. Her early days in football, her closeness to her family, her positivity, her mentality on all levels which works well with Olympique Lyonnais ... The 31-year-old Dutch midfield confides herself [in us].

How long have you been playing football?

Actually, it's quite funny because my mother was bringing me to swimming lessons on her bike when I was young. I was sitting behind her in the child's seat, and I could see everyone playing football when we went in front of the local club, that made me want to do it. I remember asking her: can I also play football? I was 3 years old. So she went to find out, and they told her that she could sign me up as soon as I was four. I started playing at that age. What we were doing didn't exactly look like football but I liked it. I was also playing tennis, equestrian ... but it was always football for me. I was always in the street, playing football with the boys.

When did you know you could make this a career?

It's really weird but in the Netherlands, there's a tradition. When you are really young and you're celebrating your birthday, everyone is singing for you and then you hold yourself straight [up] on a chair and answer the question "what do you want to do later?" As soon as I was 5, I said that I wanted to a professional football player. It made everyone laugh because it didn't seem realistic, but for me, I always believed. When I was 16, when I stopped playing with the boys and shifted to the girls and the national team showed interest in me, I said to myself: "this is it, football is taking me somewhere, this is what will determine my life." When we won the Euros with the Netherlands in 2017, that, it became something huge.

Antonin de Fonseca, who followed you during your rehab last season, said that you were calm and confident, that nothing phased you. Can you confirm?

My parents always told me: "if you don't believe in yourself, no one will do it for you," that's how I was brought up and how I grew up. But I'm not as confident as Antonin thinks. Certain things can get to me like not being a starter in a game. It's hard to digest but at the same time, it motives me to train even harder and not start on the bench in the next game. I try to transform my frustration into something positive. I don't go see the coach and ask them: "why didn't you start me?", I'm not going to blame anyone but myself. You always have to work [hard]. If you only have talent, that's not enough.

You seem full of life, do those close to you see you the same way?

Yeah, I think they would say I am smiley and spontaneous. I'm a happy person. I can't complain, I have a really nice life and I am doing what I love: play football. I'm very aware of that. I have my family at home, my other family at the club. We have the same objectives, we laugh a lot, it's nice.

How did you handle your serious leg injury last year?

It's weird because no one had gotten that kind of injury at the elite level before me. At the start, the surgeon said I would be out for four months, maybe six. At the end, it was seven months. It was nice being at the club during the rehab. The girls came to see me, were supporting me, "come on, Da[a]n, let's go." It wasn't anything huge, an encouraging word here and there, but it motivated me to give everything and be back with them on the field as fast as possible. I try to do the same thing with the current injured players. The hardest thing was to live through was the last month, because there were big clashes like the final of the Champions League. I wanted to be a part of it and play but it was too soon. And I needed to be ready for the Euros.

You were seriously injured in the knee when you were 16 (ACL), this injury to that leg wasn't the first.

Yeah, the fact of having already experienced that helped me. The knee injury made me appreciate football even more. You have to work hard to get back to your level: it's long, it's complicated, but at the end, you come back even better.

It's been six months since you've been back on the field. How do you feel? Is there any fear?

No, I don't have any fear or apprehension, which is a good thing. After a long injury, you usually go through a long period where your performances are up and down. I have to accept there will some really good games as well as less good from me. Sometimes, I overthink. I need to gain some more confidence so everything becomes natural, automatic again. I am someone who likes to attack, dribble ... When I look at my last games, I realize I don't do it as much. I need to find that again because I'm good in that area and I know I could bring something special to the team because of it. I have to give myself a bit of time, but I think that in January I will be back to my previous level.

What do you think about the team's beginning of the season? And yours, on a personal level?

I think I started the season pretty well, I was scoring [3 goals in 3 league games], I was implicated in the game, I felt good. Then players got injuries, we didn't have a lot of capable players [I appreciate Jaurena getting dragged so consistently] so it was a little complicated, there were a lot of changes in the team from one game to the next so it was hard to have any cohesion in our style of play. It's a question of feeling, of intuition that you develop: when I was playing as a 10, I know what each forward will do if I go here or there. There it was complicated because the connections weren't there anymore. But we're getting things back on track, good players are back, we're finding some consistency again.

Is the confidence back in the group after the last games?

Lyon is a team with an enormous amount of confidence. Even if there were games where we weren't at our best, we know that it will pass and we will be back to winning. It's a [core] principle, I felt it as soon as I started here. There's pressure but it is a good pressure. There is a winning atmosphere here, it's really something special and specific to Lyon, I have never known that in another club.

There wasn't any panic then after that heavy defeat against Arsenal in the Champions League (5-1)?

No, we are in the group phase so we knew we would play them again and that there would be other games to catch up. You need to be able to look in the mirror, ask questions of yourself, but nothing [good] comes from panicking.

Do you find it more complicated to win this year?

Each match is difficult because the gap is becoming more narrow. In the league, Paris [Saint-Germain] is like us in terms of results and has difficulty scoring that many goals. In the Champions League, Arsenal, Wolfsburg are better and better. [I think she's wrong in the entirety of her assessment: Arsenal is not better but simply played a good game against an extremely weakened Lyon; Wolfsburg's history speaks for itself] It's good for women's football. But beyond that, we play a lot of games. The calendar is packed, if you play for the National Team on top of your league, the Champions League, the Cup with your club ... It's a lot and it explains why it is so complicated. [Note: I think this is a super important point that some fans think affects their club but actually only affects top teams. But that's it's own blog post for another day]

What do you think about PSG?

I'm always excited to play the big games. Just like the matches in the Champions League, the clashes against PSG are part of those. They're matches full of passion for the supporters, [there's] the competition for top place... We want to show off, to play and to win.

It's a good memory for you, [playing against] PSG?

Yeah, I scored the second [goal] in the home game last season [6-1 win on November 14, 2021). We played really well that day. It was the first time I played against PSG. Two weeks earlier, the players said to me: "Da[a]n, are you ready? Because it's PSG, you're going to have to fight!"

You also scored against Paris during the Trophée des Championnes this summer (1-0 on August 28)

Yeah, that's true. Maybe they're a team that works out for me, I hope so in any case (laughter).

What makes the difference in those sorts of clashes?

If everything is clear, if everyone knows exactly what they have to do and we make those efforts together, there will be the right energy. No one player can allow themselves to let themselves go. The team which will be the most together and the best technically will win.

Do you think Lyon is stronger or weaker this year?

Mentally, we're very strong. The standards are so high here, and there's such a winning culture... For these types of games, I know that the leaders will elevate their level of play so I'm really confident.

Is it easier to play against a team like Paris, rather than a team with a low block?

It's always complicated to play against teams who park the bus, especially when we don't score quickly. Our opponents gain confidence, and us, we become nervous because it isn't working. Against PSG, it's easier to play because they also want to play and show what they are capable of. They're not going to spend their time defending, but adapt to their style of play. Which will create more space, and will allow to make more runs.

How would you analyze the attacking difficulties of the team?

There are always high expectations from Lyon, especially taking into account their standing [in history]. It's expected that we score lots of goals. When that doesn't happen, there is immediately more pressure put on the players, and the fear of missing can set in. We work a lot on it in training. But during the course of the past few weeks, I've noticed a real improvement.

Was it a turning point against Zurich, in the away game (3-0 on November 24?)

I think so. Up until then, we were aware that we weren't up to our level. We hit rock bottom against Arsenal, it was so beneath our standards.. No one wanted to live through a game like that again. From that point on, everyone tried to rebuild as a team.

Is it uncomfortable to play Paris before two big Champions League games?

No because they have the same problem as we do. Our calendar is packed, but I prefer those types of games to [our] practices (laughter).

Three things to know about "Da[a]n"

Favorite Aunt: I grew up in Valkenswaard, a town south of Eindhoven, next to the Belgian border. It's like a village, everyone knows each other. My whole family lives there. I have an older sister who has two children, they mean everything to me. I pretend they are mine (laughter). I shower them with gifts, I miss them a lot. My father had a ton of jobs, he worked in distribution, as a car salesman... My mother for a long time worked two jobs. Currently, she works in a hospital, she helps patients with their diet according to their food allergies.

Artist during her down time: When I'm not playing football, I like to go shopping (laughter). On a more serious note, I love drawing. I could do it for hours and not notice time pass. My friends often ask me to draw something for them for a tattoo. Most of them actually get my drawing as a tattoo so they can't be that ugly (laughter).

Dedicated in French. I have lessons twice a week, with a club and with a special instructor on the side. I like studying French, learning the words. I know a lot now. I can understand French, but reading is more difficult ... with all the accents, it's hard. (laughter) It's a big challenge, because I never studied French at school so I had to start from zero.

[three-possums-playing-human]

Werewolf Steddie au excerpt since this is taking longer to write than I expected

He wasn’t human anymore. He was a fucking werewolf. Under any other circumstances, this might be cool. If Dustin ever learned about this, he’d probably geek the hell out. But all Steve could think about was the fact that he’d been mauled, almost killed, then woke up as something else. Something not even human anymore.

“The good news is that you aren’t alone, Steve,” Eddie said seriously, sitting down. Steve did the same, then looked up questioningly at the fucking vampire sitting across from him.

Seriously, what the fuck. He went from Robin dragging him on a camping trip to being a werewolf and talking to a vampire while eating cheesy bacon omelettes.

“I’m sure you probably won’t want to talk any of the wolves in Hawkins, I know most of them and they’re all dickheads, but there’s more strange creatures in this town than you’d think,” Eddie began, taking a large bite out of his omelette and gesturing for Steve to do the same.

“Now… I’m only telling you this because I know for a fact that they’d both want you to know. I usually don’t go around spewing my friends' secrets!” Eddie assured, “but, uh. A couple of your friends aren’t entirely human. Namely, Buckley and Wheeler. The one you dated, not the kid.”

Steve froze, fork in his mouth. “WHA-?” He choked out, coughing when he inhaled some eggs. “Rob and Nance? Seriously?”

“Yep. Those two are very much not human. Or, Buckley is very much not human. Nancy is kind of human. She’s a witch, Buckley… some kind of fairy thing. She won’t tell me what exactly.”

“How… how the hell. Three of you? And I somehow never noticed?” Steve was, frankly, flabbergasted. All three of the friends he had that were the same age as him were just not even human. Wait…

“Wait, are you even 19?” Steve asked, squinting his eyes like that would help him be able to tell the vampire’s age.

“Wh- yes, Steve. If I was some ancient vampire, do you really think I’d be a three time senior in High School?” Eddie scoffed. And, Steve admitted, that was kind of a stupid question. What ancient vampire would even stay around High School idiots at all, let alone for two years longer than necessary?

“I’m a born vampire, and I am 100% just a dude who sucks at school.”

Steve, unwittingly, was staring at Eddie’s mouth as he talked now. Not… for any weird reasons. Or, okay, maybe mildly weird, but that’s because this whole situation was weird and he just really, really wanted to see Eddie’s fangs. Like, vampires had fangs, right? That was their whole thing. Fangs and blood drinking. He caught glimpses of the tips of the vampire’s fangs as he spoke, but no clear look.

Eddie seemed to catch onto his staring and smirked. He took a bite of his omelette, and definitely very intentionally flashed his fangs. And boy, were they weird looking. They completely took the place of a human’s canine teeth, and were probably twice as long.

“Dude, how has no one ever noticed your fuckin teeth?” Steve asked.

“I can hide ‘em. Like, partially retract them so they just seem a bit sharp, not sharp and unnaturally long,” he demonstrated by opening his mouth wide and retracting them right in front of Steve, who’s mouth formed an O shape in surprise. “Also, Harrington, maybe we should go over your soon to be wolfy stuff, instead of my vampiness?”

“Right. Right, yeah, you’re right. Sorry, this is just all reality weird, very overwhelming, and would be pretty unbelievable if I hadn’t, y’know, seen you take on a fucking bipedal wolf and hardly break a sweat. My brain is still kind of… catching up.”

(Currently 6k words finished. Originally I planned 10k words, but I have no idea anymore, probably gonna be longer) (also was originally planned to be done yesterday but instead I read fanfic all day)

[tr0ubl3d-tr4n53nd3r]

I love how ride the cyclone went through 5 (or more) openings and decided to choose the worst one

[iraprince]

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

[xitsensunmoon]

HOW TO GLAZE YOUR WORK WITHOUT A GOOD PC(or on mobile)/TIPS TO MAKE IT LESS VISIBLE

Glaze your work online on:

Cara app. It requires you to sign up but it is actually a good place for your portfolio. Glazing takes 3 minutes per image and doesn't require anything but an internet connection compared to 20-30 minutes if your pc doesn't have a good graphic card. There IS a daily limit of 9 pictures tho. Glazed art will be sent to you after it's done, by email. It took me 30 minutes to glaze 9 images on a default setting. Cara app is also a space SPECIFICALLY for human artists and the team does everything in their power to ensure it stays that way.

WebGlaze. This one is a little bit more complicated, as you will need to get approval from the Glaze team themselves, to ensure you're not another AI tech bro(which, go fuck yourself if you are). You can do it through their twitter, through the same Cara app(the easiest way) or send them an email(takes the longest). For more details read on their website.

Unfortunately there are no ways that I know of to use Nightshade YET, as it's quite new. Cara.app definitely works on implementing it into their posting system tho!

Now for the tips to make it less visible(the examples contain only nightshade's rendering, sorry for that!):

Heavy textures. My biggest tip by far. Noise, textured brushes or just an overlay layer, everything works well. Preferably, choose the ones that are "crispy" and aren't blurred. It won't really help to hide rough edges of glaze/nightshade if you blur it. You can use more traditional textures too, like watercolor, canvas, paper etc. Play with it.

Colour variety. Some brushes and settings allow you to change the colour you use just slightly with every stroke you make(colour jitter I believe?). If you dislike the process of it while drawing, you can clip a new layer to your colour art and just add it on top. Saves from the "rainbow-y" texture that glaze/nightshade overlays.

Gradients(in combination with textures work very well). Glaze/nightshade is more visible on low contrast/very light/very dark artworks. Try implementing a simple routine of adding more contrast to your art, even to the doodles. Just adding a neutral-coloured bg with a darker textured gradient already is going to look better than just plain, sterile digital colour.

And finally, if you dislike how glaze did the job, just try to glaze/shade it again. Sometimes it's more visible, sometimes it's more subtle, it's just luck. Try again, compare, and choose the one you like the most. REMEMBER TO GLAZE/SHADE AFTER YOU MADE ALL THE CHANGES, NOT BEFORE!!

If you have any more info feel free to add to this post!!

[tarjapearce]

El Diablo Wears Prada

Mafia Boss! Miguel O'Hara x Reader

WARNINGS: MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. Cucking, Forced Voyeurism, A bit of Dark Miguel, Dom! Miguel, P in V, Oral (F receiving) Face sitting, manhandling, mild knife play, criminal undertones, Implied mild exhibitionism, emotional distress, mentions of cheating, Dubious morals, implicit non-con oral at the end (M receiving). No proofread.

Summary: Tired of warnings and dialogues with your stubborn and corrupt husband, The Devil shows up at your home.

A/N: Had to get it out of me. jsksj. Finally. Enjoy (?) ❤️✨.

Pt. 2

From the many times people tried to persuade you from marrying your current husband, none of them were successful.

Massimo Bianchi. An important lawyer that had swooped you off your feet with his smile and Italian charisma.

People often told you that he wasn't good. None had to be a genius to know the man was in shady business as his main job was to defend the top dogs of  corporate world. He didn't have to mingle with underworld criminals to know how they worked cause he was one.

Corrupt lawyer that always came out successful in his cases. But you remained on the shadows, blissfully ignorant of your husband's doings to the world. All you knew was that he was the head of his firm and that alone earned him a good chunk of money.

You thought him good, though your marriage had been cold for the last few years. Even though he spoiled you with things, you didn't want materialistic rewards. You wanted him.

A true fool. Your friends called you. Sometimes you truly wondered if it

was love or just that attachment that had grown over time? The kind that makes one so used to a person that their absence feels odd yet expected? You didn't know nor cared. As long as he kept coming home at night, things would be right. Everything would be fine and the fake illusion of a perfect marriage would keep playing in the background.

And it was. Until death threats kept coming into your mail. All of them saying the same.

Stay away.

Confrontations weren't really your thing, but the tension had turned so dense that arguments were the main course of everyday. Massimo refused to spill the beans as dread only kept growing inside your already rattled mind. Just like the death threats. All of them signed by El Diablo.

"Amore, he is none. Just a petty criminal that is pissed I'm locking up his associates."

Lies, lies and more lies.

A petty criminal wouldn't put you on edge, wouldn't make you feel watched. Cause in truth, wherever you went the feeling of being observed remained etched in every step you took.

"That's exactly what they want you to believe, cara mía. That's a tactic for scum like them to scare decent people like us."

You didn't pressed any further, rather save your breath. He was as closed as an hermetic safe box.

-----

To relax your nerves you decided to go shopping, and returned home with an idea that you were certain would rekindle the cold flame in your marriage. Massimo seemed way too busy in his work to make an approach, and when you wanted to initiate things, he'd just push you away with the excuse that he was exhausted.

And you were tired of toys and your hand. So, you took a bath, lathered your body in rich and delicious smelling oils, and slipped into an emerald green silk and velvet lingerie set you just bought.

You hid it all underneath a skin tight black dress that enhanced your body shape. Hair done in a messy yet sultry look, a subtle fem fatale makeup with a gorgeous shade of burgundy lips.

The sound of your husband's car breaking violently snapped your attention at the front door. Massimo bursted out through the door and you smiled.

"Hey, darling!"

"Pack your shit. We're leaving."

You frowned in confusion at his sudden panicky and antsy state. But most importantly his tone. Urgent, demanding and scared.

"W-What? Where are-"

"There is no time for questions! Just do as I tell you! Now!"

He grabbed you by the arm and dragged you to the bedroom.

"Massimo, you're scarying me. What's going on?!"

Bianchi groaned as he threw you on the bed, nose flaring in anger at your reluctance.

"Non hai sentito, stupida stronza? Fai quello che ti dico, cazzo!" (Didn't you hear, dumb bitch? Do as I fucking tell you!)

Your teary eyes widened at him, frantic and fumbling with the suitcases. Filling them with papers and valuable objects. Not even clothes, just things you were sure he treasured more than your marriage.

"MOVE IT!" He roared and you blinked away your tears, scrambling out of his sight. He muttered things you didn't understand much as he shoved more papers inside. You grabbed the first suitcase you found and filled in with the necessary.

The sound of cars breaking and revving into the pebbled porch of your luxurious  home made Massimo to pull out a gun, you gasped and he ushered you to come closer. You kneeled next to him as he spoke in hushed whispers.

"No matter what happens, you remain silent okay?"

Your trembling hands clung to him as fear begun numbing your judgment. There was a collective round of car's doors slapping shut and footsteps that approached almost in scary synchronization.

"Go through the pool entrance, take this with you and leave. I'll see you in the other apartment"

"N-No, Massi-"

He kissed you, as he pushed a stack of documents further in your hands.

"No matter what, don't let them get this, ok?" His hushed whispers didn't help soothing your already fried nerves

"Massimo!"

"Go!"

He dispatched you with an angry growl, shaking legs scrambled once more ducking down the windows. You removed the heels as you crossed the manor, tears momentarily blurring your sight as you reached the pool. A shot in the air made you still, before you ran back inside.

A few shots and screaming voices followed you. The pained screams of your husband along some grunts made you whimper in fear. You hid behind the kitchen's large breakfast island as steps echoed ominously close. No matter in what direction you tried to go, the men, clad in black and red were there. Awaiting for their prey. Anything that moved.

The paper crumpled under your tight grip, and you covered your mouth, to remain as quiet as possible. Heavy steps retired from your area, and you exhaled in mild relief. Heart pumped hard with every passing beat, you snuck past the island to go back to the main entrance.

And just as you were about to taste freedom, the largest man you had ever seen, clad in a rich black suit and polished shoes, blocked your entrance with a stoic gaze that shifted into a shameless smirk upon seeing you.

Big, strong and long limbs trapped you against him as you cried and thrashed in a meek attempt to free yourself.

"Shh, shhh shh"

His nose nuzzled your neck and you stilled, tears rolled down your cheeks as he pointed a gun to your head. The cold metal against your temple made your breathings erratic.

"Tranquila, corazón. I'm not gonna hurt you." (Relax, sweetheart)

He dragged you to one of the many spare rooms in the house. A tall black woman with a frondous afro was finishing tying Massimo on the ground to then wipe away the blood caked in her brassed knuckles. 

His handsome face littered in bruises, a blooming dark eye on his left, a busted lip and his broken nose was all that remained after the bravado he often boasted up. Your heart couldn't help but sink in further at the sight.

You tried to go to his side, but the man only tightened his grip on you.

"Mr. Bianchi."

The man holding you spoke, to then aim his gun to him.

"S-Stop! Please!"

He kissed you deeply as his hands handcuffed your hands back. The kiss was so fast you barely had time to digest it, just like everything that was happening around you.

"You really need to shut your pretty mouth for a bit, cariño."

"Hei! Lasciala!" (Hey! Leave her)

A blonde man kneed him in the stomach, knocking all the air out of Massimo as he doubled in pain.

"Stop!" You squealed in between hiccups. Fat tears rolled down your cheeks, ruining your makeup. The papers you were given were long gone from your hands.

The woman with the afro smirked upon reading them.

"We got it, Miguel."

Massimo gulped at the name. Miguel O'Hara, one of the major criminal Don's in the underworld, El Diablo himself had came to his home to collect his reaps.

"I tried to be a reasonable man with you, Mr. Bianchi, but given your stubborn nature to cooperate and pay what's rightfully mine, I must take drastic measures for you to understand that I don't like being lied to."

Miguel made a sign for everyone to leave.

"M-Massi? What... What is he talking about?"

"You lie to your lovely wife?" His face turned one of disgust and his large feet pushed Massimo's head on the ground, his swollen cheek flattening against the expensive Prada shoes adorning Miguel's feet.

You only looked away as your husband groaned in pain despite Miguel holding back from hurting him seriously.

" You see, cariño. Your doting husband right here, has been fucking around with my associates."

He removed the outer layer of his suit and carefully laid it on a nearby chair.

"People that have worked hard for what they have and have come to me in dire need of protection against this... greedy coward."

Your eyes snapped back to Massimo as he kept folded in pain, his eyes adverted from you.

"Bribing the judges, increasing taxes, charging extra fees to those who need him? And not enough, this cabrón tiene los huevos para pedir dinero en mi nombre." (This fucker has the guts to collect money in my name.)

His meaty mouth clicked in disapproval. 

"Is that true?"

He remained quiet, blood caking on his lips and chin.

"Massimo, look at me. Is that true?!"

"I'm really sorry you have to find out this way, preciosa. But don't you worry. I know he will pay."

Dread sunk in further at his words. If there was something you were so sure of, that if your life depended on it you wouldn't fear in risking it, is the little fact that your husband never really had the intention of paying debts.

A habit that stuck with him in your dating stage, something he never grew out of. And now the fatal consequences were only added in his karma balance.

"The hell I am!" Bianchi spat at his shoes, and Miguel, unbuttoned his shirt to then pull out a cigarette. He took a long drag. Cherry scent filled in your lungs as he blew the smoke in his direction.

"I'll put you behind bars, O'Hara!"

Miguel chuckled, showing his canines. One of the reasons of his nickname.

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed the ablaze end on your husband's forehead. A new groan of pain along a few Italian curses filled in the room.

You looked away, too scared and stunned to actually do something. What help could you possibly be? You were handcuffed, barefooted and emotionally all over the place. The many warnings about him finally weighing on your shoulders.

Your name was called between breathless and pained yelps, but you refused to acknowledge him.

"Let her go, please." You heard him, speak, but no words or pleas seemed to move Miguel. He just stared at Massimo with a bored expression as he crouched to meet his eyes.

"Hope you have told her that you cheated her with one of my favorite colleagues."

His words were the last stab you could handle, you broke in tears.

"I should kill you for that alone, but that would be too merciful of me."

Miguel stood up and prowled over you, his hands reached for your face and wiped away your tears carefully.

"I am a firm believer of 'An eye for an eye', Mr. Bianchi."

He removed the shirt, leaving his torso bare before you, eyes couldn't help but wander before retreating away, Miguel smirked.

"Are you?"

Massimo glared at him, heaving through the pain as he pulled a pocket knife and approached you.

"I'll have to make you a believer, then."

The sharp of the blade slid down your dress, enough to tear through the fabric covering your breasts. His lips pursed to give an appreciating whistle upon seeing your mounds clad in the velvety and silky texture of your lingerie.

" Con permiso, cariño." (Excuse me, darling)

Big hands took each a piece of fabric to tear the dress in half as you gasped and tried to scurry away from him. A hand grope your nape and you stilled.

One of his hands was big enough to pull you before your husband as the other one rested on the dip of your waist.

"Look at that. Por Dios... Was this a surprise for him?"

Upon your silence he squeezed your nape a bit tighter and you yelped.

"Y-Yes!"

"Too fucking bad he doesn't deserves it, right preciosa?"

"Don't you dare to touch her!"

Miguel nearly cackled at his measly threats. He took a couch and placed it before him. The coolness in the room made your skin crawl, but when he kissed your neck, an involuntary gasp left your lips.

"How long has been since this man touched you?"

His hands roamed your body, fingertips grazed your silky covered nipples as his other hand ghosted over your velvet clad pussy.

Another tiny whimper as he sat down on the couch, you were placed ontop of him, your thighs stretched, making to meet the width of his well sculpted ones, clad in fine wool. Hot and moist tongue caressed the upper part of your earlobe.

"M-Months"

You gulped and his touches stopped.

"You steal, you cheat and are a con man, yet you refuse to touch your wife? And me thinking I was the monster here."

He sat you in one of his thighs and pinched the bridge of his nose, an annoyed and incredulous look on his face.

"Lucky for you I'm in a good mood right now. Vamos a arreglar eso." (Let's fix that)

His hand cupped your chin and pulled you in for a kiss. Upon feeling his tongue invading your mouth, you recoiled but this only enticed him to snake his tongue around yours, sucking it and savoring you. The oils in your skin tickled his nose, a sweet and delicious scent that he'd often gift to his most prominent conquers.

But the way you had so dotingly prepared yourself for the cheating of a man you had for a husband, stirred something within him. You groaned as you demanded for air.

A thin dribble of his saliva connecting your mouths as hot pants fanned on eachother's lips.

He kneeled behind you and rolled your silk and velvet panties down your hips and knees. He tossed them away and bent you over, earning a yelp from you as your face was inches away from your alarmed husband.

"Don't" He shook his head and whispered. It came out like a silent plea that you ignored as Miguel sunk his face between your thighs from behind with a groan. Tongue teasing your mound, caressing softly at your clit.

You trembled and clenched your jaw to avoid moaning too loud. Shame spurted over your face in the shape of a bright red flush and a heavy feeling on your stomach. Big tanned thumbs spreaded your cheeks, to push himself deeper. His tongue lapped and teased; learning your skin's taste and texture that felt wonderful on his tongue and taste buds.

Wet and sloshing slurps made you pant and choke a moan as his hands grabbed your hips, exhorting them to use his handsome face as a seat. His tongue dribbled up and down your shivering and soaked flesh.

You groaned.

"Oh my god!" You mewled as you rode his face softly, "I-I'm so sorry!"

You spoke in between breathless pants as Miguel just moved your hips faster. Your mouth went slack and your needy breath fanned over your husband.

"Cara mía?" He'd whisper with pleading eyes but you were too enraptured in your brewing bliss. By instinct your hips seeked the movements of his tongue, chasing that relief only his mouth seemed to provide.

Legs quivered as they stood in their tip toes that curled in everytime he toyed with your clit. The smoothenes of his ministrations and the unceasing wet slurps he gave in your flesh, inched you closer and closer to the dangerous precipice of corruption and pleasure.

Another man was devouring you with such hunger you didn't think possible, as your lawful husband was forced to watch as you came right before him. It made your knees weak.

Eyes drooped before they clamped shut and your mouth hissed through panting and erratic breaths a needy Yes!

The guards outside the closed door were unfazed at Miguel’s antics. But the smirk on their faces were full of pride. El Diablo, their boss was someone people often had the misfortune of underestimate, until they were no longer laughing and rather plea for mercy or death, whichever came first.

Your hands behind your back slowly tingled as numbness spreaded upwards your arms.

Miguel separated himself and wiped his chin off your delicious slick and pulled the couch closer, he unzipped his pants and spreaded your thighs above his once more. Your chest heaved as you nested against his torso, fire licking your skin at the contact. The pocket knife was brought to your skin as he locked eyes with a disturbed yet aroused Massimo.

The tip of the sharp blades ran down up your torso, leaving a faint pink trail on it's wake, your breath hitching at the sensation until it reached the elastic lower band of your bra that held the cups together.

You didn't expected the quality elastic to give in so easily under the sharpness of a frail looking knife. Your breast spilled from the velvety green confinements and Miguel groaned while he hissed in delight at the sight.

He slapped your husband's face with a serious scowl

"Watch and learn how to treat a woman, cabrón."

Miguel fumbled with his pants and cotton briefs before releasing his aching and hard cock free. Bianchi adverted his eyes, embarrassed as defeat washed over him.

Miguel slapped the tip against your drenched folds, a cue for you to move your hips and smear more of your slick all over him before sinking in balls deep.

The intrusion felt delightful and painfully tight. Inner muscles clamped around him, making his head be thrown back, relishing not only at how hot and delicious you felt, but also at the feeling of your tightness trembling around him.

"Maldita sea preciosa, me estás matando". (Goddammit beautiful . You're killing me)

His hands hooked underneath the back of your knees, making you lean against him completely. Firm and cinnamon skin toned pecs supported your arching back.

Massimo couldn't help but peek under his disheveled hair and he nearly gasped at the sight. You were completely full and stretched at the size of his hefty cock. He could see your lower belly bulging a bit as his shaft rested within you. Bianchi was unable to look away, as emasculated as he felt.

A firm slap of his hips and it sent you curling your toes. Hips accommodated further in the single couch as his lips kissed your neck, canines grazing at your sensitive skin.

"So fucking tight f'me" He plunged you deeper, finally letting your walls meld to his size to then begin his slow thrusting. As much as he was dying to raw you silly, he had enough self control to be careful and not ruin you. That would come later.

It had been a long long time since he actually enjoyed having this kind of revenge. His eyes gave a quick glance to his beaten enemy and smirked in satisfaction when he noticed the bulge in between his imitation pants. Your hands fisted behind you, letting him to stretch you completely.

Your hips gave a soft rut, snapping his attention back to you, surprised you'd seek more of him.

His hands pushed your hips down onto him and your breast bounced. His eyes stalked yours, to assert his control, but you gave in so easily. Months of being untouched had made you a needy and sodden mess.

You were tired of your toys, and now that you had the real deal, it felt too good to let it slip. Things with your husband were surely done for anyways as fucked up as the situation was.

He'd probably be killed either way.

"Eyes on me, cariño" And just then, a sinful symphony of wet and merciless thrust fell upon you. Everytime he slid in made your pussy drool at his punishment. You cooed and stared at him with such a lovely and needy expression Miguel engraved in his mind.

Tears bit at the corner of your eyes as they drooped, taking your mind in this continuous trance of being torn between getting absolutely fucked out and coherent enough to give him a vocal reply like a moan or a praise and apologies to your voyeur.

"Cara mía, Don't do this to me" Bianchi shook his head in denial, but that only enticed Miguel to make it rougher.

Shy moans turned into shameless mewls and implorings that enticed him to ruin you at his contempt. The con man wished to cover his ears, but it was too delicious and forbidden to not indulge. Unavoidable too. Your pleas turned into lewd wailings and howlings. The tears and mascara long caked and dried on your cheeks.

Despite three years deep in marriage your husband would never care enough to leave you satisfied. It was everything about him, not really minding if you finished yourself by whatever means you found or thought right.

But this, this was pure torture. Sure, he didn't do anything to please you, but the thought of you being with another man always made him kick enough with the right amount of jealousy that would keep you satisfied for at least a couple of months while he kept ruining lives.

The slaps and Miguel's grunts turned desperate.

"Just like that! Yes!" You sobbed as his sac slapped against your clit, serving a good amount of punishment to your sensitive nub of nerves.

Your skin shook, breast bounced as you squirmed and twitched in absolute enjoyment.

"Like that, princesa?"

You nodded in between blown breaths, the pressure coiled tightly in the pit of your stomach. Menacing to snap at any second.

The sex and his Oud Wood by Tom Ford undertoned sweat made a puddle of your mind. Mouth gaped and shallow breaths came clenching through gritted teeth but he stopped just when you were about to greet God to release your hands from the back.

He pushed you on the floor on all your trembling fours, wool pants discarded completely, just as his CK briefs. Everything of him exuded with luxury. Even his rutting felt like an exotic meal you've tasted for the first time and you'd never go back to settle for anything less delicious and mind blowing than this.

But poor Massimo Bianchi was a reminder of your golden band that was wrapped around your ring finger.

Miguel's hand held tightly around the base of your neck, both hands melded at the size of your frail joint. both his feet planted on each side of you, caging you between his hips, and he sheathed once more in your already puffed and beaten pussy, making you yelp at the fullness and depth.

"Miguel!" You cried as your hands held on your husband's crossed legs. Your body lurched forward, meeting his cock in a merciless pace it had you bubbling like a total fool.

"I'm... Im sorry" A choked whimper, "Oh god, I'm so sorry Massi" Your mouth mumbled before Miguel squeezed your neck to keep you from apologizing to him, choking words in your gaping mouth.

He didn't deserve your regret, he deserved nothing. He wouldn't give him that much satisfaction.

"But it feels so good!"

You rasped and Miguel smiled darkly.

"Why don't you give him a farewell kiss, cariño?"

You shook your head and he frowned.

"No? Should I stop then?"

A whimper. Eyes twinkled in amusement as you reached for your husband and forced a kiss on him while El Diablo plowed remorselessly into you.

Bianchi could only whimper in pain as you bit his busted lip and kissed him, with a rough motion Miguel pulled you away from him. Your head far too gone into a place only he could reach. His panting and mumblings had turned borderline animalistic. He had praised you through it all and you were more than willing to comply.

Your body went taut, spent walls milked and creamed him as he cradled you against his torso. Body convulsed in bliss as he spilled his hot, sticky and big load inside your spasming walls. He laughed at your husband and at your dumb-bitch gone look.

He gave you a deep smooch before laying you on the couch. He slicked his hair back and caught his breath for a couple of minutes to then put on back his boxers. His eyes darted to an expectant Massimo.

Eyes wide. Still deciding between feeling horrified and happy for having such a twisted fantasy come true. A sick fuck through and through.

"I expect my payment within a month. More than enough time for you to collect what you owe me, Max."

Miguel purposely butchered his name as he threw his thousand dollars shirt you way.

"Put that on. We're taking a ride."

----

His men had escorted you back to his car. An armored black Bulletproof Lincoln Navigator SUV. House slippers was the only thing he had allowed you to get on your feet. The cold seemed to not affect his naked torso as he waltzed out your now wrecked home.

The cologne in his shirt stronger, as it covered your naked body from prying eyes.

"Get inside"

"N-No"

Miguel's nostrils flared in anger, despite the dazing and scrumptious raw fucking he put you through some moments ago, you knew he was a dangerous man.

"Why wouldn't you just-"

"-Ta madre, que entres al puto carro, mujer!" (Fucking shit, get into the fucking car, woman!)

His booming voice made you still with a frown. His temper switching surely made you confused. Tears welled up in your eyes, and seeing the sluggishness you took to get in, made him drag you inside himself, and sat beside you and sighed.

His sour mood was thanks to one of his men, Peter. He had the most awful timing to deliver news. One of his younger recruits had been shot. Not fatally shot, but surely would cost him a great chunk of money. Bribing judges to prevent him from sending him to prison, and medics through thirds would take some resources he was planning to use in another mission.

Miles G. Morales.

The name made his patience even shorter, and it didn't helped you were sniffling as your hands rubbed your ring despite the sore wrists.

After all he did to you you still thought about that cheating cuck?

No. He wouldn't allow it. Not when he has already found a perfect use for you.

As the ride begun he pulled up the middle window, blocking his sight from Ben as he drove. He made a couple of calls, you were recoiling away from him at every chance he tried to wipe your tears. Reject was something he was used to, that didn't mean it set right in his heart. And it showed as he unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock once more.

The calls ended and he tossed the phone back to the inner pocket of his suit and pulled out his gun to rest it on your temple.

Your eyes widened as he spoke.

"Clean it."

Fear clung to you as a new wave of tears rolled down your cheeks. But your mouth beat you to voice your true desires.

"No."

His brow quirked and smiled darkly once more. He grabbed your hair and pulled you down on your knees before him. Legs still recovered from the previous cucking session, not that he cared anyways. The SUV cabin was spacious enough for him to pull the stunt.

"Funny you think you have a saying, cariño. Now be a good girl and clean my fucking cock. You made a mess out it."

The gun was pressed further, the click of his safety removal made you gulp.

Was this the life that you'd get from now on? It couldn't be. Part of your brain refused to acknowledge him as your owner, but the other part was terrified and intrigued to see how all of this would unfold for you. You won't make things easy for him as he was already making it a living hell for you.

You mouth begun to work him as he pulled another cigarette and blew the smoke in your direction.

The Devil seemed pleased. For now.

[leclerc-hs]

don't wake the kids - cl16

pairing: charles leclerc x nanny!reader (fem) summary: in which you got his daughter to finally fall asleep but risk waking her up not too long later warnings: 18+, slight smut, oral (f-receiving), bad french (please correct me i was tired while writing this lmao), not proofread!!!! word count: 1608 author’s note: i think i’ll write more for them bc i like the idea of single dad charles LMAO. this was fun xoxoxo

PART 2

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

THERE WAS SOMETHING about Mr. Leclerc that always made you stare at him in admiration. Maybe it was the fact that he always excelled at everything he did. For instance, raising a daughter on his own couldn’t have been easy. Hell, merely spending a single night watching over his kid has you feeling thoroughly drained. So, when Charles came home to you sprawled along his couch with the TV on a low volume, he wasn’t surprised. In fact, the sight brought a grin to his lips. You were the absolute cutest thing he had ever seen. Aside from his own daughter of course.

You weren’t even aware of the impact you left on him and his daughter. There wasn’t a day where you weren’t mentioned by his daughter. She adored you, and he did too.

“Comment était-elle?” How was she?  His voice was deep as he dropped his keys on the table of the entry way table. “Fatiguée?” Tired?

You barely moved as he approached the room, too comfortable to even sit all the way up for him. His hands rest in the pockets of his dress pants as he leaned up against the arch of the living room, suit jacket slung over his shoulder, eyes never straying from yours. 

You felt yourself swallowing harshly at the sight of him. He’s so fucking hot. “Elle était un ange!” She was an angel! There was a soft glow of moonlight that seeped through the curtains, casting a gentle radiance on the room as you whispered those words. You were whispering, careful to not wake her in the next room over. But also, in attempt to hide the desire in your voice. It would be a complete lie if you said you didn’t find him attractive. If you didn’t think about him that way.

With a subtle exhalation, Charles gracefully moved away from the archway, making his way towards the couch. He lowered himself onto the couch beside you, his head finding a comfortable perch on the back cushions, a gentle smile gracing his features. His legs extended languidly, and the contours of his thigh muscles subtly asserted themselves through the delicate fabric of his dress pants.

Turning his head to look at you, “Would you mind staying in the spare room tonight?” 

His eyes, an enchanting shade of green, held you captive in a mesmerizing trance. Lost in their depths, his question became a distant echo, momentarily forgotten in the captivating allure of those verdant depths.

It wasn’t an abnormal question. At least, not anymore it wasn’t. You’ve been watching his daughter for months now and have occasionally crashed at his when it was too late at night. When you didn’t answer right away, lost in thought, Charles felt the need to wearily add an “I’m too tired to take you home.”

It’s not that you didn’t have your license, but you didn’t have a car. And because it meant more money, you always said yes. At least you always told yourself it was for the money. But it really was for all the times you got to see a shirtless Charles in the morning. His hair all disheveled, eyes full of sleep. The rasp in his voice. And also, the breakfast.

His hand swiftly dropped to your exposed thigh, the tennis skirt adorning your body doing little to cover you. He patted the area right above your knee softly for your attention, “Je suppose que tu n’as pas de vêtements; je vais te trouver quelque chose.” I assume you don’t have clothes; I’ll grab you something. The touch was so miniscule, so quick, that you could barely grasp the concept that it happened before he was already standing.

Although staying over wasn’t new, borrowing his clothes was.

You found yourself unable to speak as he stood from the couch and made his way to his room. The air was charged with a delicate tension. You were convinced it was the suit that had you stumbling for words, or maybe the fact you haven’t had sex in months and Charles is just that fucking hot, and in front of you, looking at you, touching you.

“J’espère que cela est assez bon.” I hope these are good enough. Bathed in the gentle luminescence of the room, Charles gazes down at you with an intensity the captures the essence of the moment. In his hands, he holds a neatly folded pile of clothes, extending them toward you with a certain grace. A faint, sleepy smile graces your lips as you accept them. 

With a languid elegance, you begin to rise from the comfort of the couch, only to find Charles extending his hand toward you. His fingers confidently entwine with yours, pulling you up. Although, it seems Charles underestimated his strength because you are sent flying to your feet, awkwardly tripping in the process. But before you can make a total fool of yourself, Charles is slipping an arm around your waist, holding you to his chest.

You can feel your cheeks redden in embarrassment, “Je suis tellement désole.” I’m so sorry.

You feel Charles laugh reverberate in his chest, making you more alert of just how close you two were. “Ne sois pas désolée.” Don’t be sorry.

In that suspended moment, time seemed to stretch, creating a timeless place where you and Charles were encapsulated. Locked in a shared gaze, the world outside this intimate bubble ceased to exist. Uncertainty lingered in the air, an unspoken question hovering between you two. Charles’ firm hold persisted, grounding the moment in the tangible warmth of his touch. 

As the stillness enveloped you, his eyes were fixated on your flushed cheeks, a canvas painted in hues of warmth. The intensity of his gaze conveyed an admiration that transcended words. To Charles, the sight of your blushing complexion was nothing short of captivating – an endearing revelation of vulnerability that only heightened your allure.

“Tellement jolie,” So pretty. The words were so soft. Barely audible if it wasn’t for your proximity. It was as if he didn’t even know he said them out loud.

You felt frozen while trying to decide if this was a dream or not. But when the pads of Charles thumbs made way to your face, tracing your bottom lip slowly, you knew you were fucked.

“Est-ce que je peux?” Can I?

You wanted to scream. Yes! You felt your stomach churning with need. But externally, you were calm. You needed to be quiet.

You made the move to nod your head when his lips collided with yours. It was slow and tentative at first. Like he was trying to test the waters. He pulled away for a moment, eyes staring into yours once again, as if he needed to make sure you were okay with this.

But as soon as he saw your lips draw into a smile, he knew he was fucked.

The second time your lips met it was feverish and messy. All tongue and no air. The clothes that he handed you previously, now lay on the floor in a messy pile, your hands sliding around his neck. You both go tumbling down onto the couch.

He groaned quietly into your mouth – a sound as if the taste of you was something he craved his whole life. His hands dropped from your jaw, closing around your neck, as you felt him push your further into the couch cushion with the weight of his body.

“J’ai besoin de toi,” I need you.  You managed to slip the words out, your fingers trailing through his hair on the back of his head.

Before you had the chance to press your lips back together, he was pulling away, leaving you breathless and a little confused until his hands dropped to the waistband of your skirt. His fingers shoving their way in and pulling them down, your underwear being yanked off in the process. His gaze met yours once more, filled with anticipation and eagerness.

“Tu as l’air tellement putain de bien comme ça.” You look so fucking good like this.

Like this. Spread out and beneath him. Completely bare and whimpering for him. 

You could hear him curse to himself as he draped your leg over his shoulder, seeing how wet you already were. 

The first drag of his tongue on you was enough to make your back arch instantly. He groaned, his nose brushing against your clit as he dipped his tongue inside of you. Every dip of his tongue sent you bucking your hips harder against him. And he loved it. 

With every stoke of his tongue, your fingers fisted his hair tighter. You began to buck your hips, so close to reaching your orgasm, but he denied. His hands were quick to push your hips down onto the couch. He wanted to hear you beg. 

“Charles,” you sighed softly.

“Hm?” You didn’t even have to look at him to know he was smirking. His tongue was placing slow licks to your clit, light enough to keep you right on the edge.

“S’il te plaît.” Please.

Charles was back sucking on your clit in less than a second, his hands sliding up to your covered breasts, squeezing them. He moaned into your pussy, the sound enough to send you spiraling over the edge. You gripped onto anything that was near and placed it over your face, trying to cover the moans that were escaping your lips.

Your body shook as you pressed the pillow into your face. He licked you as you came down and didn’t stop until you were practically shoving him off.

His lips were glossy and puffy, coated with you. A smirk on his face as he stood up and looked down at you completely flushed on his couch, half bare. You looked at the bulge of his cock, pressing against the seams of his dress pants, and then back up at his eyes.

“Bedroom?”

[luveline]

could you please write something where maybe bombshell!reader hears one of the team members teasing about how she’s torturing spencer and she kinda backs off with the flirting and maybe it’s his turn to hold her hand and call her cute names because even though he always says he doesn’t mind, maybe he does and he just doesn’t want to tell her

tysm for requesting, 1k

Spencer's hair is brown silk in the sun. You bite your tongue to hold in a compliment rearing to come out, saccharine and completely true. Looking sweet, Spence. 

You love to compliment him and especially while Hotch is out of earshot. He and Derek play pairs against two agents from a different unit, their tennis racquets a shiny FBI navy. You start to speak and bite it back —a memory flashes, a shouting stop sign. 

You'd been teasing Spencer as he left the room, something about his indecisive hair. He's cut it shorter but left his curls without product, and you love it. 

Poor guy, Emily'd murmured, lips set against the rim of her coffee cup. 

What's the matter with him? you asked, perplexed. 

Nothing, just that he spins into a total meltdown every time you guys are within ten feet of each other. He must be exhausted.

She was joking and you know that, but something deep down worries she's right. It's not fair for you to keep winding him up… Especially when Spencer might be going along with you because he isn't sure how to say no. 

What if you're forcing yourself on him? 

You're sitting together on a small blanket in the grass with Anderson and a few of the other less competitive BAU agents. You bring your bottled iced tea to your forehead to cool down, condensation wetting your hot skin. The top of your head feels as though it has the full concentration of the sun beating against it. 

Spencer looks up at your movement. He's been reading a book for pleasure, or so he says, so he isn't going a mile a minute but he's still way faster than the average Joe. "Do you want to go find some shade?" he asks. 

"You look comfortable," you say, putting your iced tea aside.

Which is to say, I don't want you to come with me, it would disrupt you. Spencer nods and turns to the brown leather of his familiar satchel, popping the buckle open to dig around inside. 

"Do you think this would be okay?" he asks, bringing out his baseball cap. 

The fabric is starchy and the brim stiff as you accept it and wedge it over your head. You don't immediately cool, but your heart spins strange loops. "Thank you," you say. Thank you, handsome, gorgeous, baby, all beg to be said. 

Spencer stays looking at you for longer than normal. 

"Do I have something on my face?" you ask, swatting self consciously at your cheeks. 

"Nothing. You look really pretty," he says. 

"Thank you." Another loop. You point at his book, fingertip hitting a creamy page with a small thud. "Is this any good?" 

"I think you'd really like it, it feels like that last book I borrowed from you, and you loved that. They're very similar. I can lend it to you when I'm done." 

"Don't rush it for my sake."

Spencer gives you a private smile. "I won't. Just because you could watch a movie at two times speed doesn't mean you should." 

Your returning smile isn't half as nice. No shared lightness, no bright eyes. You're feeling awkward and unhappy —you really like Spencer. Like, you think you could be happy together for a long long time sort of like. He's charming and sweet and no one is ever as kind to him as he deserves, which is why you're trying to be kind now by putting distance between you.

You'll be brash forever. You can't change that, and Spencer doesn't need the stress of dealing with you, not on top of everything else. 

His smile fades as yours does. Quiet, without fuss, he scoots back on the picnic blanket, putting you knee to knee. The subtle muscle of his arm presses to yours and his hand wraps gently around your wrist as he dips his head down, his cheek touching briefly to your shoulder. 

"I know it's nice, but if the heat is getting to you we should go inside," he says, his fingers sliding across your palm to slot between your own. He squeezes your hand. "Heat stroke isn't obvious at first. Do you feel woozy?"

You stare at your twined fingers. He surprises you again, being this soft with you, and being uncharacteristically forward. Or maybe not uncharacteristic at all; Spencer won't let something like timidity stop him from comforting someone that needs it. 

"Spence," you murmur, closing your eyes, face angled down. 

"What?" 

"I'm sorry if I… If I've been messing you around. But I don't think this is a good idea." 

"What's not a good idea?" 

You can't make yourself say it. Instead, you rub the back of his hand, more for your own comfort than his, your tongue like a useless lump in your mouth. 

"You're sorry? Are you sure you're okay?" Spencer asks, no heed to the people sitting with you as he lets go of your hand to put his arm behind your shoulder like a shield. 

"I don't want to torture you," you say. 

Your friends love that word. You torture Spencer with your flirting and your easy affection. 

Spencer makes a face, eyes squinting and nose wrinkled. "They're just kidding when they say that. Emily, Morgan, they like making fun of me, it's like, sibling bonding or something. They don't say it because there's actually something to feel sorry about." He lowers his voice, bashful but sincere at once, "If you're torturing me, I guess I'm a masochist." 

You laugh without thinking, a breathless, girlish sound you'd regret if you had the wherewithal. "You're a masochist?" you ask. 

He takes the brim of your borrowed hat and pushes it up to unobstruct the view of your eyes. 

"If that's what it takes," he says. A hint of wryness creeps into his otherwise smooth tone. 

Despite his brave talk and his steady eye contact, his face has started to blush. A rosy hue kisses the tops of his cheeks and his nose, a dusting of pink splodges stark against his paleness. The curve of his lips seems extra tantalising now. He's very, very pretty. 

And he doesn't mind stepping in to take the reins when you're unsure of things. 

"We really should sit in the shade for a bit," he says. "Let's get drinks from the gazebo. Yeah?" 

You're halfway through a nod when he kisses your cheek too quickly for you to respond. You follow him to the gazebo without any more reluctance, weaselling your hand back into his, and attempt to pull another kiss from him.

[fiendishfables]

Drabble: What about...

Forgetting to leave Lucifer Morningstar one of your feathers…

There was no time to explain, no time to react. You had to leave, for his and your safety both. To preserve what you both held so dear.

"Wait, love!"

"There's no time, Luci! I'm sorry! We're out of time!"

You opened your wings, feathers rustling like a wave of glitter, ready to shade you from Hell and transport you back to Heaven.

That was until a firm, yet gentle hand gripped the membrane of your left wing.

"You can't leave yet!" He would protest.

"I don't have a choice!" You would snap back, eyes filling with tears. Hellens, how he hated seeing you cry. But you were still beautiful either way.

"Yes you do! There is always a choice, my beloved! Please, j-just...just think rationally. I can talk to them! We can work this out!"

"Not one that won't hurt you. I can't come back to you, Lucifer. Never again. We both knew it would come to this eventually."

"W-Wait, love, j-just- let me speak to them! I can fix this, I promise, I can!" Frantic tears welled in his eyes.

He couldn't lose you.

Not you.

Oh by all the saints above and below, anyone but you.

You offered him a small, sad smile, a subtle tear falling from the corner of your eye, down your cheek then to the silk sheets.

Then, wrapping your wings around yourself, your form disappeared off of his mattress, leaving him grasping for empty air. A soft rain of golden glitter left in your wake, some gently falling onto Lucifer's beautiful blonde hair.

Lucifer almost instantly began letting his hands roam the mattress, searching for the one thing you always left, hoping to cling to you the way he always did once you left him.

Except...

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no..."

The feather.

There wasn't one.

He checked multiple times. He was now certain.

You hadn't left a feather.

You. Hadn't. Left. A. Feather.

a/n: some angst to end the night is always nice. Especially if it’s a series teaser…

additional notes: I’d be interested to know y’all’s predictions as to why the readers feathers mean so much to him. I’d also love to hear any superstitions about the upcoming series in general; stay curious <3

Check out Teaser #1 here!:

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

Aegon bathing and asking his wife to join him

It's been so long since I posted anything about HotD. Have you seen the trailers? I'm so excited for the new season!! This one has been in my wips for a long time, but I kicked myself to finish it today to celebrate the upcoming season

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

You entered the ensuite of your and Aegon’s shared bedchamber, hair unpinned and cascading down your back. Outside your quarters, they were always pinned into a braided hairstyle, concealing their true length to the court’s eyes. It’s good to have a distinction between the way a lady presents herself to the people and what is only for her husband’s eyes. Your day dress was replaced by an emerald green silk robe with dainty broderies along the lapels, a gift from the queen, given to you on your and Aegon’s wedding day. It was beautiful. 

‘’There you are,’’ you said, seeing Aegon in the tub, steam rising from the scalding hot water. 

His eyes shifted to you, the corner of his mouth curling when they fell on your attire. He poured more wine into his cup, splashing some water over the side of the tub due to the movements. ‘’My wife is a sight for sore eyes.’’ 

His speech wasn’t slurred, but it would soon be if he continued drinking.

You offered him a soft smile in response to his compliment. ‘’And my husband is about to be drunk.’’ 

Aegon grinned. ‘’I’m perfectly sober.’’

You shook your head as you approached, then sat on the stool by the tub as he bathed. ‘’If you’re sober, why is this pitcher almost empty?’’ 

Aegon laughed. He was caught. 

‘’Will you be joining me in the bath?’’

He wished he could spend every night of his life just like this — just you and him, alone with one another. No more worrying about his duties as first son of the king and heir of the throne. No more worried about needing to produce heirs. Neither of you were ready to raise children, but his mother kept making subtle hints that a babe was needed soon. 

‘’It depends.’’ 

Aegon leaned back in the tub and took another sip of wine, enjoying the warmth enveloping his body. ‘’I wouldn't mind some company,’’ he said with a playful glint in his eyes. 

You chuckled, standing up and untying the sash of your robe. Under, you had on a nightgown made of the same material, but in a lighter shade. It had delicate thin straps and almost touched the floor. You until the ties of the straps and stepped out of the nightgown, which made Aegon’s mouth curl into a smirk. 

Carefully, you stepped into the tub and lowered yourself to sit opposite him. 

Aegon's gaze lingered on you, grateful that you were his. To his eyes, there was no woman more beautiful than you. Without a word, he reached out and gently took hold of your ankles, pulling your feet closer to him until they rested against his thighs.

Before getting wed, you had heard the whispers at court about how Aegon wouldn’t make a great husband. How he could never be faithful to his wife as he was always frequenting brothels and sleeping around. How cold he was emotionally. 

He wasn’t like that with you. Everything that had been said turned out to be wrong. 

‘’How long can we stay here?’’ he asked, his fingers tracing patterns along your calves. 

You smiled at his touch, allowing yourself to relax. Despite the rumors and whispers that had surrounded him, you knew the truth — Aegon was kind, caring, and fiercely devoted to you. No one could compete with your beauty. He also had a dirty mind and a slight drinking problem, but you knew how to deal with him.

‘’As long as we want,’’ you replied, running your fingers through the water. ‘’We are not expected anywhere until the morrow.’’

Aegon sighed. He hated duty. ‘’Sometimes, I dream of a life where we can be together like this, without the weight of our titles pressing down on us. A life where we can choose our own path, without the expectations of others. I…I don’t want to be king. Unfortunately, my whole future has been planned before I knew how to speak.’’

—

House of the dragon taglist: @khaleesihavilliard @domoron @ididliquorice @lover-of-helios @lover-of-helios @shine101 @tanyaherondale @mikariell95 @serrendiipty @lantsovheiress @gilliananderfuckme @shine101 @tetgod @clayzayden@memeorydotcom @tnu-ree @futuregws @blackravena @winxschester @mysteriouslydelightfulchaos @xxlaynaxx @secretsthathauntus @pilarxxxaguayo @emmavan39 @stargaryenx @erylilly @bbblackmamba @rainedrop97 @dreamer087 @gothicgay14 @ashlatano7567 @superkittywonderland @justaproudslytherpuff @evesolstice @buckysmainhxe @padfootsvixen @scarletmeii @evesolstice @dkathl @kaywsworld @tetgod @padfootsvixen @domoron   @weird-addiction @angeliod @xjennyx2 @adaydreamaway08  @mymultiveres  @secretsthathauntus  @puffycreamcakes  @thirsty4nonlivingmen  @naty-1001  @katiepie67 @moshpot24x @hc-geralt-23 @lovelynerdytraveler @saturn-sas  @zgzgh @sssjuico10 @tabloidteen @timetoten @deekaag @wondxrgurl  @aerangi @strmborns @astridyoo15 @daemonslittlebitch @queenbeestuffs @severewobblerlightdragon @agentstarkid @msliz @vane1999-blog @fairyfolkloresposts @todaywasafairytale07 @otomaniac @zgzgzh @thebeardedmoon @golden-library @kikyrizuki @hnslchw @camy85 @winxschester

[goose8791]

Piercings

warnings: mentions piercings

"Luke, sit still," she instructed, her voice a gentle yet firm command.

"How can I sit still when you have a needle next to my face?" he retorted, a hint of playful defiance in his tone.

"You wanted me to pierce your ear," she reminded him, a mischievous glint in her eyes. The needle in her hand caught the soft glow of the dim room. From his spot on the couch, he looked up at her, a playful challenge dancing in his eyes. In response, she rolled her eyes.

"Don’t make this weird, okay?" she told him, a playful smile tugging at the corner of her lips. Before he could say anything, she threw her leg over his, positioning herself so she sat on his lap, facing him. The sudden closeness caught him off guard, and his face lit up in a subtle shade of red. Leaning closer into his side, she resumed her attempt to pierce his ear.

"Stay still," she murmured, her breath brushing against his neck. He froze, feeling the warmth of her proximity. Her fingers skillfully moved back his curls from around his ears as she drew a small dot with the pen that she grabbed from behind her ear. 

She shifted back to face him, a question lingering in her eyes. "Do you actually want me to do this?" she queried, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. His nod was emphatic, his gaze fixed on her face.

"You sure?" she pressed again, a hint of teasing in her tone. "Yes! Gods, just do it," he responded, frustration and fluster evident in his voice.

"Okay, okay, okay," she chuckled, her laughter filling the room. Leaning back toward his ear, the needle poised, she deftly pricked the skin. Pressure followed, and instinctively, his hands flew to her waist, thumbs pressing into her hips. Unyielding, she remained determined, pushing the needle through the skin. A hiss escaped him, his fingers digging into her hip bone.

"I'm almost done," she whispered, threading the metal through the skin. Another hiss followed, his fingers maintaining their grip on her hips. With practised ease, she screwed the end of the piercing, ensuring it wouldn't move. A tap on his shoulder signalled the completion of the task. "You're done," she laughed, amusement dancing in her eyes as she observed his reaction, his eyes screwed shut in both pain and relief. 

"You know, for the best swordsman in camp, I really thought that you wouldn’t be scared of a little needle," she teased, laughter bubbling in her voice. His eyes opened, brown orbs locking onto hers.

"Oh, shut up," he retorted, rolling his eyes, and his hands loosened their grip slightly on her hips.

"Make me, Castellan," she quipped, playfully attempting to pull her leg off him. However, she found herself unable to move as he smoothly pulled her back onto his lap. 

"What?" she questioned, her tone attempting to maintain composure as the awareness of his hands and the subtle pressure of his thumbs against her skin sent shivers down her spine.

"I’m shutting you up," he smirked, the mischievous glint in his eyes promising mischief. Before she could react, he kissed her, it wasn’t harsh or rough but sweet catching her off guard. The initial startle gave way to a reciprocated passion as she found herself kissing him back, her hands instinctively wrapping around his neck.

In the hushed aftermath of their unexpected kiss, she pulled back, a stunned expression on her face. "What was that for?" she asked, her voice a breathless whisper that betrayed the lingering traces of their shared moment.

He leaned back, a smug smirk playing on his lips. "You talk too much, and I needed a way to shut you up," he replied, his eyes sparkling with a mischievous glint.

She rolled her eyes, a playful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "You have unconventional methods, Castellan."

"I'm a man of action," he quipped, his hands still lingering at her hips.

[wandamaximoffsbadgirl]

You Should Be Sad

Weightless, Breathless Restitute (2)

Wanda Maximoff x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: You've just joined the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but Wanda doesn't think your powers are all that special or are they?

Word Count: 2,042

Warnings: 18+, MDNI, R uses her powers on W, W calls R Mommy, R uses pet names, R calls W bunny, Mommy kink

A/N: Here is the prequel and the meeting of Wanda and R from You Should Be Sad~

The room was filled with an air of anticipation as I took my seat next to Tony. The hum of fluorescent lights seemed louder somehow, mingling with the heavy silence. I could feel the eyes of the Avengers on me—some curious, others skeptical.

"Alright, everyone," Tony began, glancing around the room. "I'd like you to meet the newest member of the team: Y/N Y/L/N."

I offered a small, curt smile, trying to hide the nervous flutter in my chest. This was a big moment for me, and I didn’t want to seem out of place among these seasoned heroes.

"I've got voice manipulation," I said, my voice steady. To demonstrate, I shifted my tone, letting it oscillate subtly, from deep to high. A few eyebrows raised in acknowledgment.

Then, I pulled down the collar of my shirt just a tad, revealing the Power Stone embedded in the middle of my chest. It glowed softly, a vibrant shade of purple, and I saw a few gasps around the room.

"This," I said, tapping the stone gently, "gives me super strength."

Thor leaned forward, his eyes wide with recognition. "That stone... It's one of the Infinity Stones."

I nodded. "Yes, it is. And with it, I can hold my own in a fight."

Tony smirked, obviously pleased with the team's reaction. "Well, now that introductions are out of the way, let's get down to business."

As the meeting went on, discussing missions and strategies, I couldn't help but feel a mix of excitement and apprehension. I was no longer just Y/N Y/L/N; I was an Avenger. And with that title came responsibilities and challenges unlike anything I had ever faced before.

The room fell silent, and Wanda's expression shifted from skepticism to a mix of surprise and frustration. I raised an eyebrow at her, a subtle smirk playing on my lips.

"Voice manipulation can't be better than my mind manipulation," Wanda scoffed.

I leaned in, meeting her gaze. "Shall I give a better demonstration?" I proposed, and after a moment of hesitation, she agreed.

As my eyes glowed with a vibrant purple, I commanded her, "Kiss me." Wanda moved, almost mechanically, ready to comply. But just as she was about to, I interrupted with a firm, "Stop."

A slight smirk danced on my lips as I added, "Kneel. Stay." To everyone's amazement, Wanda followed my commands, unable to resist. I turned my attention back to the rest of the Avengers.

"Anymore questions about how powerful my voice is?" I asked, leaning back in my chair, Wanda attempting to get up but held in place. "Oh sweetie, that won't work. Not until I command you."

The room was filled with a tense silence, and I could sense a mixture of awe and caution from the Avengers. I had just made a strong statement about the extent of my abilities, and it seemed they were still processing the implications.

I met the eyes of each Avenger in the room, trying to convey sincerity. "In the future, I won't use this power on anyone unless it's to save your life."

The tension in the room lingered, and I could see the unease reflected in their expressions. My demonstration had left an indelible impression, and it was clear they were grappling with the full extent of my abilities.

"I understand your concerns," I continued, my voice softer now. "But you have my word. I'm here to be a part of this team, to fight alongside you—not against you."

There was a pause, a palpable hesitation as they absorbed my words. Slowly, some of the tension began to ease, replaced by a cautious sense of acceptance. It was a small step, but it was a start. And for now, that was enough.

"Alright. You can get up. I don't want you all to think I'm a monster," I said, releasing Wanda from my command. My eyes faded back to their normal green hue as she rose, her expression a mix of relief and lingering resentment.

Without another word, Wanda stormed off, leaving a palpable tension in her wake. I sighed, realizing the gravity of my actions had perhaps overshadowed my intentions.

"I'll apologize," I announced, rising from my seat. It was important to me that the team understood I meant no harm, even if my abilities had startled them.

As I left the room in search of Wanda, I couldn't help but ponder the complexities of joining Earth's mightiest heroes. It was clear that earning their trust would be a journey filled with challenges, but I was determined to prove myself worthy of the title—Avenger.

I knock at her door, "Wanda can I please come in?" I ask and for a moment there is silence. The door creaked open slowly, revealing Wanda seated on her bed, her attention seemingly absorbed by a sitcom playing on the screen. She didn't acknowledge me as I entered, a palpable tension filling the room.

Standing before her, I met her gaze, searching for any sign of forgiveness in her eyes. "How could you do something like that?" she asked, her voice wavering with a mix of hurt and confusion.

"I'm sorry," I replied, my voice filled with genuine regret. "I didn't think it through. I was just showing off, and I hurt and embarrassed you, and I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

For a moment, there was silence as Wanda processed my apology. Then, to my surprise, she responded, "You can finish what you started out there."

I looked at her in shock, not expecting that to be her answer. It was a clear indication of how deeply I had wounded her pride, and I realized that a mere apology wouldn't suffice. I needed to demonstrate my sincerity through action, and it seemed that finishing the demonstration was the first step in mending the rift I had created.

Wanda's request was clear, and I nodded in acknowledgment. "Use your voice. I don't feel like thinking anymore," she stated, pulling me onto the bed beside her.

Allowing my eyes to glow once again, I met her gaze and issued a command, "Kiss me until you need air." Wanda's lips met mine with an intensity fueled by a mixture of emotions. We lost ourselves in the moment, our lips moving in sync as if trying to bridge the gap that had formed between us.

"Shall we keep going?" I inquired, my voice genuine, devoid of any manipulation. Wanda nodded, her eyes meeting mine with a mix of anticipation and desire.

My hand ventured further up her thigh, eliciting a squirm from her. "Oh, someone is eager," I teased, a smirk playing on my lips.

She let out a whine, her body responding to my touch even as my powers began to wane, no longer clouding her judgment as before. Yet, she still moved her hips against my hand, a silent affirmation of the connection between us.

The room was filled with a palpable tension, each touch and movement deepening the bond between us, forging a path towards understanding and mutual desire.

"I'm so glad you're wearing this pretty little dress, sweetie. It's going to make things a lot easier," I remarked with a smirk, my eyes taking in the fabric that clung to her.

"You want this so badly, don't you? A few commands, and that was it? Have you ever done this before?" I inquired, probing for the truth.

Wanda bit her lip, hesitating for a moment before I commanded, "Tell me the truth."

"N-no... never," she admitted, her voice shaky.

I continued to tease her, reveling in the control I had over her reactions. "Awww, that's so pathetic. How old are you, sweetie?"

Despite her efforts to hold back, a moan escaped her lips as she replied, "T-twenty-five."

I laughed, the sound echoing in the room. "Oh yes, my pathetic little baby. I'm going to show you everything," I declared, my smirk deepening as I looked into her eyes, now almost entirely black with pleasure and desire.

I removed my hand, and Wanda let out a groan of frustration. "Oh hush. Get used to it. I'm not giving you everything right away," I teased, smacking her thigh lightly, eliciting a yelp from her.

Guiding her movements, I shifted her hips and pulled her down onto my thigh. "Rub, like this," I instructed, moving her hips back and forth.

Her eyes fluttered closed, and she let out a soft mewl of pleasure as she followed my guidance. I watched intently, letting her take control, her movements becoming more desperate as she tried to find release against my thigh.

The room was filled with the sounds of her pleasure, each moan and gasp driving me to push her further, to explore the depths of her desire and vulnerability. It was a dance of power and submission, a delicate balance that we were navigating together, each movement bringing us closer to the edge.

"Y/N... Gonna..." Wanda's voice was a breathless moan, teetering on the edge of ecstasy.

"Stop," I commanded, my eyes flashing purple once again, halting her in her tracks. "Off my thigh. Move to the middle of the bed on your hands and knees," I instructed, my voice unwavering.

I watched as she obeyed, her movements tinged with a mix of desperation and anticipation. I shifted positions, moving around the bed to gaze into her eyes, now shimmering with tears.

"Oh, you look so beautiful right now, baby," I confessed, my voice softening as I took in the sight before me.

"Tell me what you want, baby. Tell me the truth." I ask, tilting her chin up. 

"I want you Mommy. Please...touch me...make me feel good. I need it...I need you. I need your touch Mommy." She cried out in desperation and my stomach exploded with a million butterflies as the sound of desperation in her voice for me. 

I couldn’t hold back anymore as I let two fingers slip inside of her. A moan came out as she grabbed my wrist. “Hands up, above your head. Keep them above your head.” You told her and she moved them as if she were tied by invisible ropes. “Good girl. Now do you want to cum for Mommy?” You asked, looking her in her eyes all dark and glazed from your words. Her head nodded frantically. “Use your words.” A whimper slipped past her lips before the words tumbled past her lips.

“Please Mommy! Wanna cum for you. Wanna make a mess for you! Wanna be Mommy's good girl, please can I cum?” She looked at you desperately.

“Cum.” You gave your command and her body obeyed beautifully. Her back arching and her moans growing louder. You felt her tighten around your fingers as she tried to fight against your command, trying to pull against the invisible restraints. Her whole body trembling for you as you forced it out on a command of your tongue.

“What a beautiful sight. Such a pretty bunny.” Her eyes widened at the nickname, drinking it up like it was water after being in the heat all day. 

“Bunny. your bunny Mommy.” You smiled down at her as you slowly left her, giving a quick kiss before going to her bathroom for a towel. Cleaning her up with a few quiet whimpers falling from her lips and a few quiet ‘shhh’ fall from yours. Once it was done with you let the command go of her hands and took her into your arms.

“You did so good for me bunny.” You kissed her forehead and she looked up at you.

“Can we do this again? Not right not, but just like in general?” She looked up at you with doe eyes still dark with lust.

“How about a date first and we’ll see where it goes?” Wanda blushed, burying her face against you and nodding. She relaxed against you until you felt her breathing even out against you. A smile finding its way to your face as you watched her. You know you had said about not using your power, but Wanda would be the exception so long as she’d want it.

Taglist: @dorabledewdroop @mrsromanovaa

[shibaraki]

THE VANISHING MOON ┊ TSUKISHIMA KEI

tags: GN reader, post timeskip, exes to lovers, fluff, emotional hurt + comfort, reader is a writer, alcohol consumption, mutual pining, getting back together, kisses, weddings, previous ‘mutual’ breakup, happy ending

wc: 4.2K

For as long as you can remember, you’ve loved love stories.

The first time you picked up a pen with the intention to write you’d been looking for a specific someone. To pour love into and be loved by. Conjured from the recesses of your mind, a soft smile from the boy you liked, one prepared to whisk you away from the converging angst that came with your adolescence.

In later years you looked inward, searching for yourself. To satiate your loneliness through self introspection. Ink blotted fingers working arduously at the knots that make up the soul. Knots that were once straight rope, simple and without weak points. And when you failed to love yourself you turned outward, exploring the web that made up the world.

You saw that other people loved stories, too. That there would always be at least one which speaks to them in some way and stays with them. You coveted that reality; to be something another person could love, and look back on with fondness. For your words to strike such a chord that they’d become part of another’s tapestry. To live on. Never again be forgotten, even if it means being an echo of something.

That yearning accompanies you up the cobbled footpath. The crisp air pinching the tips of your ears. Soft, muted chirps rippled throughout the treeline. “Wow,” you murmur, breathless. Arms sticky with perspiration, leg muscles tingling in exertion after walking the steep hill.

The reception venue sits on the end of a private road, concealed by threadbare canopy. Under an open sky there lay every shade and stroke of colour. Dappled sunlight casts shadows across the grass and your eyes are drawn to them.

“Wow is right. They’ve done an incredible job,” Sugawara airs his appreciation as he walks at your side. His voice is awed, and his cheeks are red. “I can’t believe they managed it. Karumai Gardens are notoriously stingy for booking events”.

The wedding invitation shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Remaining some of your closest friends, Kiyoko and Tanaka had already confirmed your attendance long before the formal invites were sent out. You even found yourself on the end of multiple phone calls over the months assisting a panicked Tanaka with writing and rewriting his vows.

Despite that, your stomach roiled at the invitation on your kitchen counter, and your heart crawled up into your throat. Because suddenly it was too real.

Everybody would be there.

Tsukishima would be there.

You’ve been a high strung for most of the day, hyper vigilant to the point of fraying. The ceremony was beautiful. Kiyoko looked ethereal draped in her white lace gown, a delicate veil cascading down her back and rippling down the aisle as she walked. Tanaka was striking in his dark blue suit and embroidered waistcoat. Sitting at the forefront, you remained steadfast in your ignorance of Tsukishima’s scrunity and dabbed at your face as you cried.

You missed having his attention. Missed the subtle stroke of his sharp gold eyes across every part of you as though it were Tsukishima’s hands themselves. A scant, cowardly part of you considered not attending the reception, grateful that he hadn’t approached you yet. If he would at all. Kei could be unbearably prideful about these things. But what do you know?

Nothing. After all this time you probably know nothing at all.

“I think he wants to talk to you,” Sugawara says, drawing your focus to the present. “It’s obvious he’s missed you”.

You edge past the increasingly dense foliage with intent, your fingertips outstretched to brush the near-blooming plants. “Who?” you ask. Sugawara’s grin turns wry and he threads his arm through yours.

“So petty,” he murmurs, patting your bicep. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But he’s single, and has been staring at you all day. I thought I should mention it”.

“Well you’ve mentioned it,” you return without true malice, squeezing him back. Sugawara’s lips parted in a sigh, and for a brief second, you saw a wistful expression beneath the lighthearted veneer. It stirs unease in your chest and you add, “I just don’t want to make a scene”.

“You really think that’s what it’ll come to?”

Memories unearthed from the deep recesses of your mind. Packed away into tight spaces and left to collect dust where they can’t hurt you. They awaken easily, triggered by a simple question, and with such clarity that you wonder if you ever forgot them at all.

Soft, deliberate touches. Long, warm embraces, swallowed up by his large frame. Graceless laughter—the ugly kind that makes your stomach hurt. Languorous kisses, biting kisses, chaste kisses, clumsy kisses. Good morning and good night kisses. Bickering over breakfast. Bickering over dinner. Wandering, calloused hands. Pressure behind two fingers, splitting you like soft fruit. A sharp tongue and sharper words. Holding hands in bed, anchoring yourself to him like you were afraid he might float away in the night.

Life became busier than either of you expected. Kei landed an opportunity to play for a division two team in the V league alongside his work at the Sendai city museum. Your publisher's demands increased. Kei’s priorities shifted. Resentment crept in. He started to forget things. Small promises and favours, like getting the grocery’s or making it home for date night. They felt so significant at the time—things you deemed indicative of his commitment to you, without communicating as such.

Fractures formed in your relationship. You ignored them in favour of keeping the peace, hoping to address them when the timing was better. Only with hindsight can you say that was the wrong choice. The fractures contracted, expanded until it grew into a yawning cavity with one of you standing either side of it. A slow decay.

“No. No, it wouldn’t,” you tell Sugawara. Tsukishima has never been a shining paragon of virtue but he wouldn't do anything to disrupt Tanaka’s wedding. “I’m just nervous. I haven’t seen him since…”

Sugawara hums his acknowledgment. You’re adrift as he guides you into the venue holding the wedding reception, welcomed into a kaleidoscope of colour. Carefully crafted floral arrangements line the hall. Half of the building is a greenhouse conversion, and natural light filters in through the high, arching ceilings, illuminating the dance floor. You take in the surroundings as your senses are enveloped by the pleasant din.

“Look, there’s Yachi and Nishinoya,” Sugawara tugs on your arm and calls out, “Yachi! Noya!”

Nishinoya crowed, leaping forward to gather you and Sugawara into a blistering hug. Barely two extra inches on him yet larger than you remember, skin kissed by the sun and his hair handsomely coiffed. His waistcoat creases awkwardly with the stretch of his body while you sink into his warmth and feel your cheeks ache.

“Man, I feel like I could scale a mountain! It’s so good to see you guys again,” Nishinoya reclines to get a look at you both and firmly takes you by the shoulders. “You have a lot to answer for,” he says with mock seriousness.

“I do?” you laugh, skull knocking side to side as he shakes you.

“I read your book on the plane”.

Your laughter putters out. You grimace and clear your throat, “Oh—really?”

“Most of us have. We wanted to support you properly,” Yachi admits as she steps forward to hug you. She’s smiling when she pulls away, faint laughter lines deepening.

Sugawara nods and pokes at your waist, “Don’t look so embarrassed. It was amazing”.

“It made me cry!” Nishinoya effuses. He sniffs, and to your mortification he looks like he might burst into tears again. “There was this one line—gah, no! I can’t talk about it. Get over here, I need to hug you again”.

“Thank you, Noya-san,” you wheeze at the arms constricting around your midsection, eyes clenched shut to repress the impending sting. You turn your head, nose knocking against his temple as you peer at the others. “Thank you all. I mean it”.

Yachi squirms, her smile quivering. “I’m really happy you made it today,” she says once you’ve been released. The unyielding pressure of Nishinoya’s embrace lingers like two phantom limbs. “You too, Nishinoya-san”.

“It’s amazing you’re upright. I thought for sure the jet lag would get to you,” Sugawara laughs. He utters a quick apology to the server passing with a tray of drinks. “Didn’t you fly in from Barcelona?”

“Yeah. Should’a been heading to Andorra but I wouldn’t miss my bro’s wedding for the world,” Nishinoya’s voice drifts as his eyes follow the alcohol. He plucks a glass in one swift motion and holds it high, “Salut I força al canut!”

Yachi watches him throw back the drink with poorly veiled anxiety. “Ah, speaking of, we should find our seats. It looks like the cake cutting is starting soon”.

“Good call. We’re getting in the way of the preparations. And I think you’ve left Asahi alone for too long,” Sugawara claps Nishinoya on the shoulder. “Looks like he’s been accosted by Saeko-san”.

Nishinoya pivots on his heel, whip-like and buzzing. You’re not sure which name he reacted to more. Asahi or Saeko. “Where?” his gaze locks in on the pair across the room. “I’ll talk to you guys in a bit!”

Gone in a blink. “He never slows down,” Sugawara sighs, shaking his head fondly. “Guess that’s my cue,” he says before parting ways. Yachi waves after them.

An idea strikes you then. “Say, Yacchan. You’re next to me, right?” you glance toward the long tables set up around the dance floor and meet her gaze with a suggestive smile. “Would you want to sit next to Yamaguchi instead? I don’t mind swapping”.

Their relationship had blossomed over the past few months. A long, slow burn finally come to fruition, new enough that mention of it usually makes her turn pink. But the light in her eyes dims at your suggestion, and rather than flustered, Yachi looks uncertain.

Her fingers form a loose clasp around your forearm. “Tadashi is seated next to Tsukishima,” she explains gingerly. You feel yourself freeze and the kind motion of her thumb strokes circles along the inside of your wrist.

You let out a shaky exhale. “That’s okay. I don’t mind,” you tell her before the consequences of what you’re offering can really be cemented. Yachi’s eyes widen, her grip tighter on your hand as you squeeze back in an attempt at reassurance, knowing your smile looks brittle. “It’s probably for the best. We haven’t… talked yet”.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure”.

“Are you sure you’re sure?”

“Hitoka,” you laugh, bumping your shoulders together. “I promise I’ll survive”.

You regret it not two minutes later.

Anticipation fizzes under your skin as you spot him. On approach you give him a cursory look over, the harsh beat of your heart ricocheting in your chest. Tsukishima looks good—he always does, but today, dressed in his dark, double breasted suit, with the golden hour light carding fingers through his neatly styled hair, you think he’s never looked better.

It is disconcerting to see him again and realise that your feelings haven’t changed much in the slightest.

You sit in the chair beside him. You see his spine draw taut in the corner of your eye and feel an oscillating loneliness; so alike those final few weeks together that cold dread seeps between the spaces in your ribs and steals your breath.

“Tsukishima,” you incline your head, impersonal and cautious, hating how foreign his surname is on your tongue.

A beat passes before he repeats your name in greeting, soft as a psalm despite the dour expression on his face. You’re overcome with the urge to poke the uncomfortable crease in his brow. To smooth it out and kiss the skin there, the way you used to do.

You shift in your seat. The arms curve around your midsection and knock against your elbows as you fiddle with the table cloth, “I told Yacchan that Yamaguchi could have my seat so they can sit together. I hope that’s alright”.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” and you know the clipped answer is reflexive by the way his jaw locks in frustration at himself. Bracing for what you’ll say next.

Only, your mouth curls up a little, and you exhale a short laugh through your nose. You haven’t seen him this skittish since your first year of highschool. You consider that maybe you aren’t the only one who’s scared. That things are the same and they are not the same. The thought is bittersweet, but it’s nice, the way his trepidation gives way to muted awe, how he sends you sidelong glances when he thinks you’re not looking.

The music picks up in a grand crescendo as the newlyweds enter the hall and the reception begins with a raucous applause. A rich aroma unfurls as the food is served, the depth of the flavour layering over the already present notes of wildflower and honey. Drinks are handed to the guests. Generously. You swirl the liquid gold around the rim of your glass, luxuriating in the syrupy inebriation of a gently oaked chardonnay.

“So, uh. How’ve you been?”

Tsukishima, to his credit, does not startle at the question. “Fine,” he says, and you think he might leave it at that when he adds, “The museum received another new Crinoid collection last month, so I’ve been preoccupied”.

You grasp at the conversational thread, not wanting him to stop, “Crinoids?”

“Marine animals. They still exist today, though not as common. You might’ve heard of sea lilies and feather stars,” he shrugs halfheartedly, not daring to look away from his deep fried tofu, though it’s clear he can’t help talking about his work with pride. “Ours are from the Triassic period”.

“Just like the, uh—” you click your fingers to conjure the name from thin air “—Gojirasaurus! Your favourite, right?”

Tsukishima pauses. It’s a fleeting thing, but you notice. The corner of his lips curves into a barely-there smile. He seems pleased that you remembered. You busy your hands with repositioning the cutlery a fourth time so maybe, hopefully, you can distract yourself enough not to say something stupid like: “If I visit, will you show it to me?” or “Do you miss me, like I miss you?”

You clear your throat. “I hear the Sendai Frogs have been doing well, too. Congratulations on moving up to division one”.

Those aureate eyes are sliding to you again, bright and searching. Tsukishima arches his brow in a delicate mocking gesture that was unbearable when he was sixteen and even more so now. “Keeping tabs on me, are you?”

There’s mirth trickling into his voice, giving it a familiar smarmy lilt. A wave of emotion washes over you. Embarrassment and heart-twisting-happiness. You shove some rice into your mouth and chew it down to fine paste, vying for time to formulate a coherent sentence. “No. I read about it in the latest Volleyworld issue,” you reply unconvincingly.

“You don’t read Volleyworld”.

“How would you know that?”

Tsukishima takes a shallow breath and nods. The warm gloam of late afternoon mellows his taut features. “I’ve been reading too,” he says after another sip of wine. “I saw you finally published your book”.

Dread seized the inner workings of your mind and the apology on the tip of your tongue curdles. Time ticks by, one sickening second after another. Your eyes dip low to avoid his gaze—which for some reason, he refused to direct anywhere else.

Your recollection of the break up itself was hazy at best. There had been no raised voices, no desperate movie-esque kiss, no slammed doors. Only grief filling your body like lead, and jumbled, half-hysterical thoughts of ‘Is this it? Are we giving everything up, just like that?’

You remember everything that followed, though. The inability to accept reality. It is said if a writer falls in love, that love can never die. And so you kept writing, and writing, and writing; perceiving love through different lenses, creating different endings; relying on metaphors of natural forces and disasters, of cannibalism and gluttony, of journeys and patience to make sense of it all. Six months after everything fell apart you completed the final draft of ‘The Vanishing Moon’, dedicating a final testimony to him in small print on the first page.

Given the choice, I would’ve rather had you at my side than any one of these words.

Has he seen it? Is that what he’s getting at? Did he read through all eighteen chapters and meticulously pick out the remnants of him you pressed between the pages?

“Noya said it made him cry,” you eventually reply.

Tsukishima signals for another drink. He takes two flutes from the server, handing one to you. You accept it with a soft ‘thanks’, hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in your fingers. “Nishinoya-san cried when he found out swans can be gay,” he points out.

“You cried at The Land Before Time”.

“What kind of cold hearted bastard doesn’t cry at The Land Before Time?”

Laughter bubbles up in your chest as the initial dread ebbs away and the tension seeps from your shoulders. Tsukishima dips his chin, a small smile as he mutters, “That’s better”.

In the centre of the hall Tanaka cradles Kiyoko in his arms, now surrounded by clusters of their loved ones whirling with their own partners, a hurricane of colour and laughter and love. Tsukishima observes them with a solemn gleam in his eye. That could’ve been us, his heart says in chorus with your own.

“Do you remember that time we danced together in third year, at the summer festival? I tried to kiss you and gave you a nosebleed”.

“I remember”.

Your gaze drops to the bottom of your glass. At the time you had been mortified. Now it’s a story you would share at your own wedding table. The thought cleaves your heart in half.

“Do you remember the song that was playing?”

“Why are you bringing this up?” Tsukishima snaps. “Yes, I remember everything. I couldn’t forget even if I wanted to. Happy?”

There’s a surge of something devastating in your chest, like love and heartbreak all at once, strong enough that you feel as if your ribs might splinter just to make room for it. But they don’t—and you don’t, because you’ve felt this before, and your body remembers.

You remember.

Suddenly the room is too hot, and the music is too loud. “Sorry. I’ll be back in a minute,” you murmur, pushing your chair back and getting to your feet.

“Wait,” in one short breath there are long, calloused fingers circling your wrist. You do wait. Tsukishima hesitates, the pressure elevates, and as you lean away your palm slips into his, skin kissing skin. Then he’s standing, towering over you. “I’ll come with you. I know a place that’s quiet”.

Tsukishima does not let go of your hand, and you don’t let go of his. He walks a few steps ahead guiding you through the throngs of people. Some familiar heads turn, their attention drawn immediately to the place where your bodies meet, and shooting you various looks of encouragement or confusion. Yamaguchi sees you pass and his mouth splits into a grin so wide that his eyes crinkle.

You’re not sure where it is he’s taking you, only that his promise of finding quiet is true. The cacophony simmers and soon enough the festivities are muffled entirely. Just when you think you’ve wound up at the end of a corridor it curves, leading to a pair of french doors. “Come on,” Tsukishima ushers you out onto a balcony.

What you’re greeted by makes your breath catch. The world as it is around you comes to a standstill, the fabric of reality peeling away. An orange yolk dips below the horizon and the sunset hour drapes across the ostensibly endless meadow hidden behind the Karumai Gardens. Rolls of grass sway in the wind, peppered with wildflowers of every shade.

You move to stand at the balcony’s edge. Tsukishima drops his hand, and your fingers curl into your palm. The shadows grow longer, the air cooler. The evening insects begin to sing. You’re warmed still by the wine thrumming in your bloodstream.

“Hey, Tsukki?”

He comes to stand beside you, folding his arms atop the wall. “Don’t call me that”.

“Oh,” you swallow against the swell in your throat. “Sorry, Tsukishima”.

Tsukishima’s expression twists into a scowl. There’s a blush creeping toward his ears. “I didn’t mean that,” he says. You blink and wait for him to elaborate, which only flusters him further. He stares stubbornly at the border. “Just—call me as you normally would. Anything else sounds wrong in your mouth”.

The name leaves you in an instant. Hushed—not whispered, “…Kei”.

He makes an inquisitive noise, strangled as it is.

“You didn’t say what you thought of it,” you continued. “My book”.

You feel a rush of adrenaline when Kei doesn't answer immediately, unable to read his expression. “Good,” he says, veiled indifference belied by the restless twisting of a cufflink between his forefinger and thumb. “It was good”.

“Well, that’s practically a Pulitzer recommendation coming from you”.

“Shut up,” he huffed, gaze flitting across your face and dropping to your tentative, uncertain beginning of a smile. He wets his lips and glances away. Heartened, both by the alcohol and his reciprocation, you press closer in small increments, and Kei flowers under your gentle persuasion, like he always used to.

“This okay?”

In lieu of a reply you are ensconced by a warm, firm chest and two strong arms around your back that show no sign of withdrawing. The low timbre of his voice vibrates under your cheek, “Who was it for?”

“Hm?”

“The book. You dedicated it to someone”.

You exhale, squeezing your eyes shut. You’re glad, in part, that he can’t see the emotion written plainly on your face. “Nobody,” you answer lightly, angling to position your ear right over his beating heart. “Just an ex. You don’t know him”.

“Right,” Kei says, drawing out the ‘l’ the way he does when conceding a point he knows he’s correct about. It sounds so fond that you want to curl up where you’re resting, like some benevolent cat. “Guy must’ve been a dick”.

“I was too. We made a lot of mistakes, I think,” you say. If nothing came of this you would at least be able to revisit it; to pick at the scab and stop the wound from closing over too soon. There’s comfort in that. You crane your head and meet his gaze, nervous but unwavering. “But even if he was kind of a dick, I miss him a lot”.

“Yeah?” his eyes soften, half lidded and dark. “He misses you too”.

“He told you that, did he?” your mouth trembles. Kei dips to bring your foreheads together, and the hard frame of his glasses bumps your eyebrow. You share a shaky exhale of laughter.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, brow pinched with regret. Again, “I’m sorry. I know I fucked up”.

You feel your jaw quiver. The familiar burn behind your eyes. Tears so close you can taste them. “We both did. Don’t shoulder the blame on your own”.

“But I made you feel lonely,” he says.

You tuck your chin and whisper, “Yes”.

His fingers splayed across your cheek, pinky tucked beneath your jaw as he cradled your face in his hand, tilting until you’re staring back at the reflection in his pupils. Puffy and damp, eyelashes clumped with tears. What a sight.

Kei strokes his thumb in an arc beneath your eye. A tear beads on his nail, slipping into the crook of his hand. The inexpressible tenderness is overwhelming yet you are underwhelmed by the inaction. You can’t find it in yourself to be embarrassed by the whine in your voice as you ask, “Are you going to kiss me?”

“Demanding as ever. What happened to ‘please’?” he murmurs. And then he kisses you.

It is slow at first, hesitant, leaving room for you to pull away. But with every languid movement of Kei’s lips came a sweet affirmation, that which you took and took until you no longer felt unworthy of receiving it. His hand flutters at your waist. You take a shuddered breath, pressing closer into his embrace and deepening the kiss. In his distraction you take him by the wrist, encouraging him to touch. There’s an immediate, reverent grip at your hip, kneading over your clothes.

This is what you’d been longing for. The feeling you couldn’t transpose; that which people have long tried to capture. The esoteric, giddy anticipation and joy that bubbled between two people on the precipice of something bigger than themselves. Even with an affinity for stringing words together you are scarcely able to describe it. Immense and overwhelming, light and dark, tender and everything in between.

Kei pulls away for breath with a low, vibrating hum, wearing a smile that you thought you’d never see outside of your memories. Almost boyish when he looks at you. The distance is an inch too many but it is just that—an inch. “Eager,” he teases, only to kiss you again, twice as eager.

For as long as you can remember, you’ve loved love stories.

But love doesn’t only exist in stories.

You remember that, now.

[lqveharrington]

Silver Roses & Fallen Roses

2: Capitol Zoo (masterlist for series)

summary: With the Games getting closer, Coriolanus must get his tribute to trust him. But, who knew that the Capitol Zoo would give your relationship with him issues.

pairing: young!Coriolnaus Snow x fem!reader

warnings: jealousy, coriolanus being manipulative, coriolanus hurts reader (on accident), death, mentions of death, mentions of blood, a little fluff, ANGST, grandma’am being protective, italics are flashbacks

word count: 5.2k+

a/n: this might be one of the longer pieces i’ve written in a while. this chapter is definitely a lot and it took so long to finish. things are starting to change within their relationship, and i will advise, it will go downhill from here.

Red. Rouge. The color could be and mean many things. It could be love, the color of the Academy uniform, or rage. It could be strength, revenge, or a shade of lipstick. But in this case, red meant jealousy.

You have always hated jealousy as a trait. It was never a pretty sight. In fact, you could only recount two times you were ever jealous in your life.

Once was two years ago, before you and Coriolanus were ever dating.

Funnily enough, you were jealous of Clemensia.

Dean Highbottom announced another research project that was worth 40% of your semester grade. Typically, you and Coriolanus were paired up together for assignments like these. However, you were given random pairings. You were happy when Highbottom pulled out your name and Sejanus’. It had been a while since you two worked together. Yet, when the next two names pulled out were Coriolanus and Clemensia, you felt an uneasy emotion stirring inside. One you have never felt before.

Everyone switched seats to be seated near their partners. Sadly, Sejanus sat far from you, causing you to gather your things to move. Within that same moment, Clemensia slid into the seat you once occupied, adding another strike to the emotion settling in you.

“Y/N,” Sejanus smiled at you, letting you take your seat. “I’m relieved I got to be partners with you.”

“You and me both.” You return the smile, slipping a clean sheet of paper out. “Shall we get started?”

As soon as you started to come up with ideas, your gaze drifted toward the opposite end of the room, watching Coriolanus and Clemensia work together. They seemed like they were having fun working with one another. Clemensia grabbed his forearm at a joke Coriolanus made, making your blood boil. You knew you shouldn't feel this way over your two best friends, but when it came to being millimeters away from your blond, it shook you.

“Are you… Okay?” Sejanus poked your shoulder, a concerned expression etched across his face. “Your pen looks like it’s going to explode with the way you’re gripping it.”

You look away from the sight right before Coryo looks over. “Sorry, I was… Distracted.”

“I bet.” He chuckles, earning a curious look from you.

“What do you mean?”

Sejanus tilts his head in your direction, making a subtle gesture to the blond. “You’re jealous.”

“Am not.” You frown, scrawling nonsense on the paper. “I was merely looking at them.”

“With a scowl on your face.” The curly-haired male pointed out. You flush at the observation, rubbing your face. “I doubt anything will happen, you two are as thick as thieves.”

Your eyes return to Coriolanus after listening to Sejanus’ words, meeting his water colored eyes. You smile at him, earning one back before Clemensia stole his attention again. With a fading smile and the unfamiliar feeling settling in your stomach again, you focus on the work given.

When Dean Highbottom released your class, you bid a quick bye to Sejanus before heading to the courtyard. The weather was fairly nice, and all the other students were already filling the area. You make your way toward the willow tree planted by the courtyard’s corner. It was the same place you always were, reading a book. Usually Coriolanus was with you so you could read to him, but you assumed he would stay with Clemensia.

Opening the book to where you left off, your focus was solely on the book and trying to push the feeling away, not realizing Coriolanus was just a few feet away from you.

“Where’d you go? I was looking for you.” He jogged the last few steps.

“I figured you were to hang out with Clemmie, since you’re suddenly all lovey-dovey with her.” You mutter out, not looking up.

“Excuse me?” He took a seat next to you, giving you an incredulous look. “I was not lovey-dovey with Clemensia.”

“Yes, you were.” You frown again, taking a quick glance at him. “You were the entire class.”

“Now why were you watching us instead of working on your project with Sejanus, beautiful?” Coriolanus took your chin with his thumb and pointer, forcing you to look into his eyes.

“You have no right to call me that at the moment.” You push his hand away, shoving your book back into your bag. “Good bye.”

He studies your features for a bit, piecing the pieces together. “You’re jealous.”

“What?” You whip your head at him, using an accusation kind of tone. “I am not jealous of you and Clemensia.”

“You are jealous.” Coryo smirks in your direction as you furiously flush red. “That’s just confirmation.”

“I’m not jealous, Coriolanus.” You cross your arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You really are jealous.” He raises a brow when you say his full first name. “You just have to admit it.”

“I’m not jealous of you two. I’ve never been jealous in my entire life.” You stand, Coriolanus following. “So how can I possibly be jealous of you and your blossoming relationship with Clemensia—”

“Just say that you’re jealous.” He puts a hand behind your back as he guides you through the courtyard. “You’re jealous that she’s going to spend more time with me, and that I’ll replace you with her as my favorite person…”

“I’m your favorite person?” Your eyes slowly light up, trying your best not to show it.

“Only if you say you’re jealous.”

“Never.” You lift your chin a little higher. “I’m not jealous.”

“What a shame.” He leaves your side for a second, turning around to face you. “All you have to do is say you’re jealous or I’ll go find—”

“Fine.” You mumble, looking away. “I’m jealous.”

“What was that, beautiful? Couldn’t hear you.” Coryo got a bit closer, leaning toward you.

“I’m jealous.” You shut your eyes, earning an airy laugh from him.

Coriolanus pulled you into a small hug, pecking the top of your head. “Cute.”

The second time you were ever jealous was at this moment in time.

You were told by Tigris that Coryo went to talk to his tribute earlier this morning. What you did not expect was him being in the zoo cage with his tribute.

All you wanted was to have breakfast and leave, but your father made you watch the live casting.

You blankly stared at the host of the Hunger Games as you caught Coriolanus’ platinum blond in the background of the television.

“That’s right! All twenty-four of them— What in the gem of Panem? Is he..? That’s an Academy rouge, no?”

Multiple emotions gnawed on the inside of you. You were terrified that something was going to happen to him in the cage, but at the same time he was looking at her as if his life depended on it.

“Excuse me! Hello, sir! Yes, you, in the red. Who are you and why are you in there with them? We’re live.” Flickerman gestures to the camera as it focuses on Coriolanus.

You study your boyfriend’s face, realizing he was talking to Lucy Gray.

“Isn’t that something?” Your father remarked. “Now why would your boyfriend be in the cage along with the other tributes?”

The look on your face never leaves as Flickerman continues to ask questions concerning Coriolanus’ safety. After a few seconds, Coriolanus slips a flower behind the girl’s ear. It wasn’t just any flower. It was one of Grandma’am’s white roses.

He takes Lucy Gray’s hand and gets closer to the camera. They started to answer questions Flickerman was asking and that look Coryo was giving his tribute never left his face.

At this point, all you could see was red.

Coriolanus never gave you one of Grandma’am’s beautiful roses or looked at you like he was so ever in love to be near you. And what completely set you off was the way Lucy Gray leaned into your boyfriend’s figure, Coriolanus wrapping an arm around her waist.

You rolled your eyes at his gesture, standing from your seat on the couch. “Turn that off. It’ll only do damage to the household’s eyes.”

Your father raises his eyebrows at you, shutting the television off.

Taking your bag and fixing your Academy uniform, you leave the Lovett Manor.

You enter the car that was taking you to the Academy, muttering a good morning to the driver.

“Are you okay, Miss Lovett?”

“I’m fine.” You look out the window, slowly passing the trees decorating your driveway.

A beat passes.

“How can he do that?” You ask the driver, fiddling with your silver necklace.

“Do what?”

You huff, twisting the chain. “Be so close to a tribute.”

“He is smart, Miss Lovett. He might be strategizing with her to win the games. Isn’t your father’s deal still on despite the change for the Plinth prize?”

“I guess.” You mumble out a response, jealousy continuing to bubble as your thoughts keep going back to the pair. “I called his cousin to see if Coryo and I could walk together today, but she said he was talking to his tribute. I guess talking to your tribute involves holding your hand and tucking important roses behind their ear.”

The rest of the car trip was silent, only the sounds of passing cars filling the space.

Arriving at the Academy, you thanked the driver and headed into the building. You weren’t one for letting comments and looks get to you by others, but it seemed as if everyone was judging you today. There were whispers everywhere you turned and points in your direction, only provoking your current mood.

“Miss Lovett, if I can see you.” Dean Highbottom calls for you before you enter his class, making you curious.

“Yes, sir?” You clutch your bag a little tighter.

He sighs, “Did you somehow convince Mr Snow to talk to his tribute which caused him to be put into the zoo cage?”

“No. I haven’t talked to Coriolanus at all today.” Your face is as hard as stone, showing zero emotion. “Why? Is he in trouble?”

“Oh, most definitely, Miss Lovett.” He pauses, seeming as if he was going to add something else but refrained. “I would suggest you take your seat, classes are about to start.”

You enter the classroom, not questioning your professor any longer. Silently take your seat next to Sejanus, frowning at the empty seat to your left.

Time agonizingly passed on. Highbottom gave out a textbook assignment which, he said, would take the majority of the class. It would be until forty minutes later that Coriolanus showed up to class. By this time, you were annoyed at the fact he was late. He was never late. And being late to class for talking to a tribute just made the situation worse.

The doors slammed open as Coriolanus walked inside, taking a few seconds to look for your figure. You never dared to look up at his icy stare, doing your best to focus on the papers in front of you.

“Your little excursion was in violation of about five different Academy rules, Mr. Snow.” Dean Highbottom did not bother to look up. “Which amongst them endangers Capitol students—”

“What, who?” Coriolanus interjects, stopping his movements.

“You and your dear Miss Lovett.” He retaliates. “I’m meeting with the Gamemakers to disqualify you as mentor immediately.”

You look up at the mention of your name. What did he do that could possibly endanger you?

Coriolanus stood by his seat, deciding to argue with the Dean. “You said we had to get our tributes to perform, not that we had to stay away.”

“I’m putting insubordination as well.” Highbottom mutters, scratching the violated rules onto a paper.

Arachne looks at Coriolanus with distaste, placing her pen down. “Introducing her to people? Holding her hand when you have a girlfriend, Coryo? You make it look as if we’re one of the same as those animals.”

The grip on your pen tightened at her unneeded comments. The red encasing every fiber of your body once more as your classmates argued. You really started to hate Lucy Gray.

“Coriolanus didn’t show those people anything they didn’t already know.” Sejanus jumps in to defend his best friend.

“I don’t need your help Sejanus.” Coryo lowers his voice, taking his seat next to you.

He laced his hand with your left, making you freeze.You glance at him but don’t meet his eyes. You purse your lips and remove your hand from his, pushing it away from your lap.

You could feel his stare from your side, making you shift uncomfortable at the now high tension between you.

If Coriolanus had been with you earlier that morning, you would’ve welcomed his touch. However, you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of doing something highly dangerous then coming back straight to you. Especially with the addition of being close with such a tribute.

Yes, you wanted to feel his comfort, and yes, you regretted not staying the night at his penthouse. But right now you couldn’t look at him without thinking of what you saw earlier.

Coriolanus hid a scoff at your behavior, choosing to rest his hands on the desk instead. He didn’t like to be ignored by you. You were his and obviously something altered your mindset if you acted like this.

Suddenly, Dr. Gaul appeared from the top of the classroom, slowly descending the stairs while reciting a kind of poem.

“Snow fell down in the cage. It fell down in the cage, but it landed.” Her eyes found the blond’s face, noticing his attitude to the female to his right. One she noticed during the reaping the other day too.

A small silence filled the room while Coriolanus slowly shifted his gaze to the doctor. “On stage.”

Her wicked smile appears on her face, “You’re good at games. Maybe one day you’ll be a game maker like me.”

“Not if the games continue at all.” Highbottom interjected, turning back around to face Dr. Gaul.

“Oh, they’ll continue. With performances like young Mr. Snow’s in that zoo?” She gestures toward Coriolanus, eyes flickering to your face as well. “And I came here to ask your star mentor a question.”

The attention goes from Dr. Gaul to the male sitting beside you.

“What are the Hunger Games for?”

Coriolanus takes a second before answering, the gaze of his classmates heavy on him. “They’re to punish the Districts for their uprising. To… commemorate the end of the war—“

“Commemorate the dull, dull, dull.” She runs with her words, her raspy voice making it sinister. “Punishment can take myriad forms. Why not drop bombs? Cancel Food shipments? Stage executions? Why games?”

“Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves whether or not they’re right in the first place.” Sejanus replied instead of Coriolanus, making your head snap up to the Plinth. “Some of those kids were two years old when the war ended. The oldest of them were only eight!”

“Sejanus—”

“Ah, Miss Lovett.” Dr. Gaul called, catching your intention of stopping Sejanus’ ramble. “Tell me. What are the Hunger Games for?”

You pinch your hand, looking between her staring eyes. “To remind the Districts of the Capitol’s power and lack of remorse for the war they started. To show that, if pushed hard enough, humans will do whatever it takes to survive.”

Dr. Gaul clapped her hands at your response, her crazed smile only growing. “I like this one! She understands what the Hunger Games are for.”

You bite your tongue, doing what you could to show no emotion for the unnecessary praise.

“Unlike you, Mr. Plinth. That sort of sympathy might mess with your mentoring assignment.” She says in disapproval.

“Perhaps the Capitol students are ill suited to be mentoring tributes. Perhaps the game's time has passed.” Dean Highbottom attempted to talk about ending the games again.

“Dean Highbottom is wrong. My classmates too.” Coriolanus stands, taking another look at you before shifting his attention to Dr Gaul. “Maybe Sejanus is onto something here. Maybe we should be viewing those tributes as human beings.”

You frown at your boyfriend. It seemed like he didn’t want the Hunger Games to continue yet he defends his stance like he needs them to continue.

“I mean, you saw those kids at the zoo. They wanted to get to know Lucy Gray—“

You let out a fake laugh. One that was quiet enough so that not everyone could hear, but loud enough that those sitting around you and Dr. Gaul could hear. You earned a curious look from Dr. Gaul and a glare from Coriolanus in the process.

“If we need people to watch, we should be letting them get closer to the tributes before the Games. To make the stakes personal.” He finished, a prominent scowl replacing his once calm face.

You cross your arms and legs, watching the wall clock as they continue to converse about the topic. You lost interest the second he mentioned his tribute’s name. You could feel Coriolanus’ stare on you as he and Dr. Gaul went back and forth in their conversation.

“— Lucy Gray may not win in the arena… But if you just give her a chance, I would bet the Plinth prize that can win people’s attention.”

You caught his last bit, rolling your eyes at the mention of the infamous songbird.

Dr. Gaul hums, straightening her back. “I’d like you…” She flicks her eyes to your profile. “And Miss Lovett to write up a proposal of these thoughts tonight, Mr. Snow.”

Your eyes widen at her, sitting up at the idea. “Dr. Gaul—“

“Wait.” Clemensia stands, hands lightly hitting the desk. “You mean you might actually use his, their ideas?”

“If it’ll help the ratings, why not?”

“Coriolanus,” She said loudly, trying to get as much recognition as the two of you. “And I are class partners. Dr. Gaul, we do all our assignments together.”

The doctor chuckles at Clemensia’s added comments, entertaining the idea. “It’ll be an interesting test.”

She took her leave, and it seemed as everyone in the room relaxed at the missing presence of the head game maker.

Coriolanus takes his seat next to you again, bringing his head by your ear. He felt you tense under him, making him release a quiet but bitter chuckle.

“Meet me in the library.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Coriolanus pulled you behind one of the shelves, gripping your arms.

“Nothing is wrong with me, Coriolanus.” You try prying yourself off of him. “Let go.”

“No.” He hardened his grip. “You’re being weird—“

“I’m being weird?” You throw your head back, laughing at his irony. “You were in a cage, locked with fucking tributes. Who knows what could have happened to you? You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

You tilt your head, a fake pout on your face. “No shit you didn’t.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.” Coriolanus got so close to your face that you could see the rage in his eyes.

“What are you going to do about it?” You crease your brows. The hands that held you in place started to hurt, but you couldn’t let that stop you now. “Tigris said you were just going to talk to your tribute, not follow her into where they’re being held.”

“I need her to trust me—“

“I’m not fucking done, Coriolanus.” You try to get out of his grip again. “You gave her one of your grandmother’s white roses, held her fucking hand, and looked at her as if she were the best damn thing that ever happened to you.”

“Is that what this attitude is about?” He scoffs at your childlike nature. “You’re jealous over my time spent with a District tribute?”

“You never looked at me the way you looked at her.” You seethed. Your silver necklace dangled over your collarbone, the light hitting it which caught Coriolanus’ eye. “And you never gave me one of Grandma’am’s special roses.”

The male looked back into your eyes, processing your words. “I need this girl to trust me. The only way for her to trust me is if she believes I cherish her. I want to win the Plinth prize. And according to the Dean, the way to win is by getting Lucy Gray to know someone still cares about her, even if she’s sent to her death. The people of Panem need to love her.”

You roll your eyes once more at the mention of the girl, “What good is winning the Plinth prize knowing you’re killing innocent people?”

“That’s not what you said to Dr. Gaul.”

“I don’t think I had a choice on my words spoken to her!” You almost scream, feeling tears welling in your eyes due to your boyfriend’s harsh grip. “Let go of me, Coriolanus. You’re hurting me.”

Something in him clicked, letting go of your arms.

You back up into one of the tables, wincing at the sudden sting. Coriolanus stepped close to check on you, suddenly feeling bad for holding you as hard as he probably shouldn’t have.

“Beautiful—“

“Don’t touch me.” You whisper as you rub your arms. “Don’t you dare.”

Coriolanus stops his actions, “Y/N…”

“I don’t like the Hunger Games.” You stare into his eyes, letting tears well into your eyes but never letting them fall. “And I can’t do anything to stop it. But I’ll try my very fucking best to get my tribute out of there alive and treated like a human and not as a spectacle for the eye.”

You shove his shoulder as you walk away from him, leaving the male in the library on his own.

“Fuck.” Coriolanus groaned, running a hand through his hair.

The rest of the day, you did your best to avoid Coriolanus. You would walk with Clemensia to classes or sit on the other side of the room if you had to. That was the first time he actually hurt you. Both mentally and physically.

You went into the restroom during your lunch break, removing part of your uniform to check the skin where Coriolanus gripped you. The skin was bright red and no doubt would be purple in a few minutes. Tears welled up in your eyes again but you refused to let them spill. Not for the same reason.

When classes ended, you took the fastest way you could to the Capitol Zoo, your bag filled to the brim with food, water, and medicine for your tribute. You knew your tribute was extremely sick and the chances for her survival were higher if she got any better.

You were the first mentor to appear at the Capitol. Although not the first visitor. Many parents and their children were staring at the tributes like they were animals. You did your best to avoid the camera set up right at the front, heading to one of the corners of the exhibit.

Lucky for you, Dill and Reaper were already situated in that area.

You were quickly able to gain their trust through the food and the medicine you brought for Dill. The three of you conversed about almost everything. Especially Dill. She wanted to know everything about you.

You offered her and Reaper more food as the young girl continued to question you.

“What about her? Are you friends with her?” Dill pointed to Arachne.

You shake your head, “More like acquainted. She’s not my favorite person I’ve ever met.”

“Good. She seems mean.” She grimaces at Arachne teasing her tribute with food. “Mm, what about that crazy man?”

“What?” You crease your brows, a confused laugh coming from you. “What crazy man?”

“That one.” She gestured to a blond, blue-eyed male. “The one who followed us in here. Is he your friend?”

You subconsciously grab your silver necklace, wrapping a finger around the charm. “He… Yes.”

Dill’s eyes lit up at the beautiful necklace, “That’s so pretty! Where did you get it?”

Smiling at her enthusiasm, you take it off and show it to her. “Coryo—“

“Who’s that?” She held the charm in her palm.

“My,” You hesitate, glancing at his crouched figure. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend?!” She practically shouts, jumping to her feet. You catch the necklace before it can fall out of her hands, slipping it back on. That medicine really helped her.

The people around you look over, making you flush red at the sudden attention. “Dill, honey—“

“Who is it? Is he also a mender?” She continues to jump and down. “Is he here right now?”

Coriolanus catches your embarrassed state, tilting his head at what the young girl could possibly be talking about.

“He is, but Dill, you can’t announce it to everyone here.” You tuck a piece of hair behind your ear, rubbing your arm from the sudden pain it emitted. “And it’s mentor.”

“Well which one is he? Is it him?!” She points to Sejanus, making you chuckle.

You catch your lover’s eyes, watching his own eyes drift down to your arm. The small smile on your face fades and you look down, clearing your throat.

“No, not him.” You hand her your last water bottle and shut your bag. “If I tell you who it is, do you promise not tell the rest of the tributes?”

“I promise.” She crossed her heart. “Who is it?”

You gesture for her to come closer, whispering into her ear. “It’s the crazy man.”

“Really?” She whisper-shouted back, looking at Coriolanus. Dill looked back at you and noticed your bothered face, “What’s wrong?”

“We had a fight today.” You mumble, dusting your skirt off. “We didn’t leave off on a good note.”

“Oh.” She held your hand. “Hopefully you make up! Even if he is crazy, he’s crazy smart. So are you! I just know you two will be married and have beautiful children and—“

Screams fill the air, cutting Dill off. You quickly whip your head toward the noise, finding Arachne being held by her tribute. Reaper came back over to pull the young girl away from you while you were pulled away from her by two peacekeepers.

“What’s happening to Arachne?” You strain your neck to look over, watching blood pour out of her neck. “Oh, god— Oh my, god.”

Shots were being fired by peacekeepers, killing the tribute that attacked one of your peers. You pulled yourself away from the peacekeepers and rushed over to her. Although you weren’t the closest with Arachne, you were still going to try your best to help her.

“Arachne?” You kneel by her, holding her head. “Can you hear me?”

She sputters out incoherent words, the glass bottle still pierced into her neck.

“You’re going to be fine. It’s going to be fine.” You do your hardest to stop the bleeding without hurting her even further. “I’m sure someone is coming to help—”

“Beautiful—” You feel a pair of strong arms pull you away from Arachne’s body, her body slowly becoming lifeless.

“Oh, my god.” You drop your hands, letting the arms pull you up. “I can’t— She just—“

“Baby, I need you to breathe.” Coriolanus turned you around, holding your face in his hands. “Breathe with me.”

You shook your head, Arachne’s blood covering your hands. “Her family needs to— She’s d–dead. Her parents—”

He wiped the tears you didn’t know were falling from your face. “It’s not your fault. I need you to breathe, okay? Can you do that?” You suck a shaky breath in and release, shutting your eyes at the encounter.

“Okay, good. A few more.” He continued to brush the tears off.

Coriolanus made sure you could breathe properly before leading you further away from the Capitol zoo. You tried to not get any blood on Coriolanus’ school uniform and tried to stop the flow of tears.

Admittedly, you hated how Arachne acted, but you never wanted her to die because of it. But her action toward the tribute was wrong and she paid the price for it. At least, that’s what the voice in the back of your mind repeatedly said to you.

“Do you need me to take you home?” Coryo took out water from his bag and wet some tissues, rubbing your hands.

You mumble a small no, sniffling from all your tears spent today. You assumed the tears were from what happened before and that Arachne’s death was just the trigger for it. You were still upset over Coriolanus and Lucy Gray and the way he treated you earlier. But those thoughts were pushed and locked into a small chest. You needed to be with him after what just happened to a classmate.

He looked at you with somewhat concern, “Are you sure? I can—”

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Your glassy eyes met his, catching his worried look. “I can’t spend tonight alone.”

Coriolanus threw the tissues away in a nearby trash can, “Always.”

You let him pull you into a hug, forgetting that he hurt you physically and you didn’t want him to hold you.

“It’s starting again.” Grandma’am walks over to the table you, Coriolanus, and Tigris were seated. “This is how it begins… The war.”

“It was my fault. I suggested we get closer to the tributes.” Coriolanus says in a distant tone, his hand in yours.

Your head rests on his right shoulder, dressed in one of the robes Tigris made you. You let him fiddle with your hand, feeling him trace his name over your palm.

“You’re just lucky that your songbird and that sickly girl didn’t attack the both of you as well.” Grandma’am gestured to you.

“They’re not rebels, Grandma’am. They’re just girls.” Tigris looks down at the table, her voice wavering at the thought of the poor tributes.

“Trust me. Lucy Gray hasn’t been a girl in a long time.” Grandma’am shook her head, Coryo’s eyes snapping up to hers. “Outside of this Capitol, they’re savages. One and all. However they may smile, they will use you. You must use them. Or you’ll end up dead in the trees like your father.”

You squeeze Coriolanus’ hand at the mention of his deceased father, feeling him tense under his grandmother’s words. You loved Grandma’am, but to say something about her grandson’s dead father to get his act right did not settle right with you.

As the night grew longer, Tigris eventually escorted Grandma’am back to her room, squeezing both yours and her cousin’s shoulders.

“Don’t let him stay up all night for this.” Tigris told you, hoping you would knock some sort of sense into him. “Good night.”

You smile at her before shifting your attention back to the male to your right. “You heard your cousin.”

Coriolanus had his left hand now resting on your leg, occasionally moving his hand up and down to keep you awake. “You’re supposed to help me with these thoughts, you know?”

“I know.” You give him a sleepy smile. “I’ll help. I probably won’t have the best ideas, but I’m here as moral support.”

He chuckled at you, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Best moral support ever.”

You ended up falling asleep the second he got to the fifth paragraph, head resting on the papers he already filled out.

But you and Coriolanus knew something between the two of you shifted. And you both knew it. Why?

Because he had yet to apologize for hurting you earlier.

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[rocktavian]

One of the things I appreciate about Hollow Knight is the subtle distinctions in the design of each area of the map, and the way that those differences have such an impact on the moment-to-moment feel of being in those places.

What particularly resonates with me is the shades of difference between the three remotest major regions of the map: Deepnest, the Ancient Basin, and Kingdom's Edge. All three share an overall hostile and unsettling feeling, but their respective airs of menace manifest in different ways:

Deepnest wants you dead. Its tunnels are dark, mazelike, and claustrophobic, and when you're in them you're being hunted. Dirtcarvers attack from the ground, Little Weavers attack from the sky. You can't trust the floor to hold beneath your feet. You can't trust a corpse to stay dead. You can't trust your own reflection. Deepnest wants to back you into a corner and eat you and it will not let you forget it.

The Ancient Basin is dead. Airless, nearly empty, nearly silent. In most of the region, the only life you will see is Shadow Creepers, slow and mindless creatures that (per the Hunter's Journal) have never been known to eat or drink. If you dig deep enough you can find the vestiges of life – a lighthouse long abandoned, the vast emptiness where a palace once stood – but even these are few and far between. If the Ancient Basin were to blink into nonexistence, who but you would ever notice?

Kingdom's Edge does not care whether you live or die. Everything in this region is primal and inexorable. It's carved out of irregular cliff faces and yawning chasms over pits of acid. The Hoppers march incessantly forward, turning around occasionally but never stopping or changing their behavior; the Colosseum is equally perpetual, a continuous baying for blood that dumps its corpses ceaselessly into the pits below. Kingdom's Edge will not attack you, but nor will it protect you. Faced with the onslaught of Aspids and Belflies and stalactites, you can carve out a space (as Oro did), or you can get overwhelmed and succumb (as Markoth did). Either way – whether you live or you die – it's your own fault.

The experiences of being in each of these places is totally different. But all three give me that skin-crawling curiosity of "I'm not supposed to be here, but I can't look away."

[capslocked]

SERENDIPITY

male reader x kwon eunbi

18k words

Before the attraction ferments, Eunbi says, kiss me properly and pull me apart. or, Where all your little tragedies begin.

-

If you want to start getting technical, you’re Minju's plus one to the gala, and that’s already a lot, a lot, a lot to unpack.

She’d gotten whipped into a bad mood that evening before you even had your shoes on, all on account of your apparent inability to distinguish cobalt from azure, and now should anyone have the wherewithal to examine the fabric of her dress, your tie, maybe with a forensic kit, they’d discover the two are not actually matching. If there was any part of you at all inclined toward keeping up appearances, you probably wouldn’t be content with a career in radio broadcast. But here you are, surrounded by actors, actresses, idols, and everyone who thinks the cut of their jaw is just a little better than everyone else’s - the kind of people who feel entitled to time in front of a camera.

Networking, is how Minju ends up pitching it to you, and now it makes the whole thing seem a lot like work and it’s actually kind of exhausting.

It’s not even an open bar either, as she had originally advertised.

You pay - get this - you pay twenty-three dollars for a vodka tonic and it comes with so much ice you’re not totally unconvinced you could build an igloo. So when everything starts to go to shit, nearing the end of drink number one, you’re not even slurring your words. Tipsy, perhaps; just slightly. To the point you can feel it in your fingers. But nothing like a good excuse.

It’s about then that Eunbi navigates her way around the bar - unnerving, enough to make the sweat grow cold.

On account of her being fucking gorgeous, you end up watching her closely: notice first that she’s carrying a pair of heels in her hand, completely barefoot, and you have no idea what that’s about, but you end up more fixated on the fact that she slides herself into the barstool on your left - which comes across as something of an omen, given that the rest are completely unoccupied. It’s only thirty, forty minutes into the event and people are still plenty busy with that thing where they fake smiles at each other until they feel like they fit in, showing, with bare minimal effort, that they too can mingle with entertainment’s elite.

Now, you don’t actually recognize her, not right away that is. The last you’d seen her, she had her hair cut right above her shoulders and its shade was a serious degree blonder than the current iteration - now curtaining her face as she studies the drink menu and flips it over several times in her dainty hands.

After a long minute, she looks up, interrupts the bartender from polishing a piece of glassware, and orders an old fashioned, substitute brandy, leave out the orange peel, with sugar on the rim. If it’s not the usual amendments that give her away, it’s the saccharine-sweet flavor of her voice, lilting in a manner that’s instantly unmistakable.

Eunbi, you’re guessing aloud, a little apprehensive, and immediately you retreat behind the liquor in your glass. She turns to you, slowly, knuckles masking the subtle quirk in her lips at first, before letting her chin rest on the heel of her palm to reveal a flash of her signature hundred-kilowatt smile.

“Oh,” she says, and she’s blinking with clear amusement that you remember her name - as if you could ever forget it, as if these run-ins were somehow infrequent; you’d only both been plotting orbits around the same star that was Minju for the past couple years. Her head tilts, lips parting to ask, “your date ditch you already?”

She’s half-right.

“You break a heel?” you ask her, nodding toward the pair of black t-strap heels she’d tossed onto the bar counter with a defeated sigh.

“Maybe.” Eunbi drags a dark lock of hair back behind her ear. It falls almost immediately back in front of her face and it ends up staying there until the bartender places her drink in front of her. “But my question first.”

For the record, there’s nothing here particularly novel worth dwelling on. It’s always some provocation or another with Eunbi, you remember now, as she holds you with a stare, eyes wide and brilliant; she sails through life all with the confidence of someone very aware of how pretty she is - knows precisely what she can get away with, right down to the letter of the law. The dress hugging tight to her isthmus of a waist is evidence of exactly that - tighter each time you look - so if you’re waiting for her to get it wrong, don’t hold your breath.

“Minju’s having a moment,” you tell her, “it’s not like she doesn’t know where to find me.”

“Hm.” She pauses to take a careful sip of her drink, running her tongue over her bottom lip as she places the glass onto a square napkin. Folds her hands in her lap and asks, “can you explain something to me?”

“If I say no, are you going to ask anyway?”

Eunbi nods to herself, dry laugh telling you it was as rhetorical as you thought. “Seriously, how is it you two are always fighting?”

We’re not always fighting, you want to say, before Eunbi makes a face. She has this uncanny effect on you - raising an eyebrow and tilting her chin as though she were disappointed; the sharp edge to her smile, half challenge, half something far less kind. It could rip truth from the most reluctantly tight-lipped of privacies. “We’re working on it,” you tell her.

“Oh?” she asks, leaning in. 

“God, you don’t have to say it like that.” The ice clinks in your glass as you toss it back, finding it lamentably empty. “You make me feel like I have to repeat myself a thousand times - we are,” you add, “we’re working on it.”

“There’s something that keeps you together, clearly,” Eunbi says, pressing her finger to her lips before fixing you with dark eyes and an easy, charming grin. 

She has you figured out, to some extent: knows how you’ll slip up for a girl with a pretty smile, prettier eyes, all the sorts of errors you’ll start to allow when you start cataloging the curves of her body, inventorying how they taper impossibly at her waist, flaring again at her hips, her fucking chest, the way they all look under the tight fit of that damn dress-

“The make-up sex really that good, huh?”

You almost, almost choke on the ice cube you’d been sucking to keep yourself entertained.

“Optimistic to think there is any,” you admit, regretting it right away - like think about it: there’s absolutely nothing good that could possibly come of that. “That’s just how it goes.”

Eunbi looks downright triumphant. More than usual. “Oh, sweetie.”

She waves over the bartender and asks him for another whatever it was you were drinking, because she’d hate to see you go dry, and as he’s turning around she shouts over his shoulder, go ahead and make it two, actually. You don’t realize it, but you’re beginning to study her, paying really close attention to all these little details - the sparkle of the bracelet on her slender arm, how it falls a few inches off the corner of her wrist as she gets her hand back in front of her face, raking her nails through all that thick, glossy hair, black as night - you don’t know what the feeling is that rears its head as you watch her, but it’s not completely unwelcome.

“What?” she asks as her eyes flick up to yours to catch you looking at her, closely, not that you’re gawking, but she lets you off the hook like you are - just gestures to the pitiful looking heel on the counter and shrugs. “It’s not like I have anywhere to be.”

To be honest, it’s not that you lack basic foresight. In fact it’s shockingly easy to predict where this is going. Because here’s a quick behind the scenes tour on how these interactions usually play out: you’ve got your excuses, your trepidations, justifiably - the reality that you’re kind of already in a pretty high profile relationship key among them. And like clockwork, Eunbi readily finds you game for some flustering. Eunbi, who lays it on thick, comments seeped in innuendo and suggestion, whose glances linger perhaps a little long to be a fascinating coincidence. Eunbi, innocence and arrogance entwined, in the filthiest of minds. Eunbi, always with her fingers twirling her hair and wearing something just modest enough that makes it feel like it’s your fault for noticing that her figure is impeccable. You’ve not actually gathered much from your brief conversations other than that she likes to flirt with you, likes it even more when you’ve got your foot in your mouth, and instead of putting you out of your misery, keeps you suspended there, egging you on - this all beyond the fact that you’ve only really managed to learn the many different ways you want to undress Kwon Eunbi.

You want her pressed up against the wall of your apartment, among other places, one of those pleated skirts crumpling to a pile around her knees as she keens for you, and your hand busy sliding up between her thighs.

You want to listen to her sighs as you unfasten each of the white buttons on one of those collared shirts that stretches and aches to keep her chest concealed, how she’d hum in delight as you trail kisses down each new inch of soft pale skin that all would unveil. 

You want her in your lap when you fiddle with the latch of her bra until her tits spill out of its lacy fabric (it’s always lacy in your head), and she’s got you gasping for air, smothered, asphyxiated, dying, ascending, it’s all so, so great in theory.

It’s just that - some way or another - Eunbi looks at you like she knows all of that. You’ve been skirting around the issue for months.

“Tell me,” she starts, and suddenly, without warning, she has you under the microscope, reeling you further into the conversation, pulling at loose threads - where is Minju right now, are you still living together, does she help with chores, can you trust her, does she trust you - she grabs a handful of pretzels and watches you intently as you try and remain unruffled, diplomatic - are you generally happy with how things are going, when was the last time you had sex - you’re blindsided by that last one, or something, but that’s out there now, in the open.

“Uh.” Eunbi purses her lips. “You’re kidding.”

You just shrug.

“How long has it been now between you two? Like officially."

“I’m surprised you don’t already know.”

“Alright.” Eunbi clicks her tongue. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“My fourth year of university, her first,” you explain. Though never before have you felt as crooked about admitting that as you do at this moment. Others had often appreciated something about the impudence of it, but you’re doubting Eunbi’s going to be one of those people.

“Young,” Eunbi states, matter-of-factly. The look on her face says she’s thinking.

“Not that young.”

“You’re twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-five.”

“You’re-” Eunbi’s eyebrow’s knit together like she’s trying to remember something. “Wait, really?”

“Does that bother you?”

“Why would that bother me?”

You’re realizing that she’d gotten closer to you, only now pulling her stool along the floor to catch up with her, and she’d started whispering into the waning space between you as though there was anyone else in the bar you’d need to shield the contents of this conversation from. “It just seems like not a lot of time to get to know yourself. If I were you, I’d be relieved.”

You can’t fucking stop looking at her mouth, glossed pink lips, cupid’s bow and all that between her dimples; your voice comes out oddly thick. “You’re not me.”

“No,” Eunbi says, shaking her head, “I'm not. Here you are, in some miserable relationship to score good karma - I’m having way more fun.”

“Easy,” you warn her, and it comes across just antagonistic enough to let Eunbi know she’s pushing the right buttons, digging in the right place; god only knows what she’ll find.

“Really.” Her fingers start skimming the bottom of your tie, like it’s nothing at all. Like she doesn’t know what might happen if she starts touching you. “Let me guess,” she continues, “A real break-up is too  inconvenient or something right now, Minju doesn’t want the bad press, not when her career is still this fragile, because let’s face it-”

“It’s complicated.”

Eunbi smirks, not bothering to hold it back this time. The way she sees it, your usual excuses are losing their efficacy, quickly: you might not be single, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t thinking about how good she looks in that tiny fucking excuse of a dress, how you’re hoping she might need to run off to the restroom later so you can see how her ass fills out the back of it, how it might look even better on the floor next to your bed - that you’re only a breath away, looking for pretext, perhaps just a little encouragement -

She rests her elbow on the counter, leans a cheek onto her fist, and angles herself against the bar so that the intoxicatingly low dip of her neckline is staring you right in the face, soft cleavage out on full fucking display. It’s not subtle. You never thought too hard about why Minju never invited Eunbi over. You’ll never need to.

“But - but I mean, I guess that’s the gist of it,” you feel inclined to add, stumbling a bit, figuring that if you steal away into the safety of your one true talent - talking - you might just resist the very present urge to reach forward and press your lips to hers. 

“You’re an accessory,” says Eunbi, unbothered, and her eyes take a lazy sweep from your face down to your waist. It’s a leer. “Though,” she murmurs, “can’t really say I can blame the girl.”

“First off, rude.” You’ve got a finger pointed to the ceiling when you say it. “Secondly-”

“Too nice for your own good, you know that?” Eunbi takes a sip from her glass, and after fixing a dark, stubborn strand of hair back behind her ear, she finds herself again in that anxious distance inches away from your nose. “Why don’t you have some fun with it?”

“Fun with what?”

“Just because you figure you’re going to go crawling back to her doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of your-” she stops, eyes fixing to your lips before continuing, “situation.”

“Can I mention something to you?” You swallow once, twice. Now you’re both looking at each other’s mouths, breathing the same air. “You have a pretty fucked up perspective on interpersonal relationships.”

“What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” she asks, completely ignoring the assessment. Her fingernails skate along the counter until she’s pinching at the cuff of your sleeve, and her hair falls back in front of her face again, though this time she looks into your eyes like she’s waiting for you to move it out of the way.

“What are we doing right now?” you ask, agitation just beginning to rear its head. “What are you asking me?”

“I’m bored, and you’re the only other person here.”

“There’s, like, a million people here.”

“I mean right here,” she says, nodding to the broken heel on the counter and gesturing between your chests. “Besides, I like you.”

You really could surge up and kiss her, you realize. Her lips are so close, right there in front of you, and there’s not any sort of question of whether she’d let you. The part that scares you is you haven’t a fucking clue what you’d say when the moment comes to finally pull your mouth off hers, and that’s not something you’re usually trying to sort out. Nor are you really in a blathering mood, and now you’re imagining it: Eunbi’s expression all smug and haughty, something that could inspire a good blather - uh, did you just kiss me?

“Forgive me, but I feel like I need to point out,” Eunbi adds, mildly entertained, “most guys wouldn’t be asking this many questions.”

“I’m not most guys.”

“Uh, I am fully aware,” Eunbi says, running a fingertip along the length of her collarbone, slowly, and her voice dips out if its usual airy register into something less musical, more serious: “Do you even have a clue what I’d do for a guy like you?”

“Eunbi,” you say, harshly, not that it matters; she’s going to tell you.

“For starters,” she says, and her hand is around your tie, tugging like you won’t tell her to stop, like she knows she’s gorgeous in all the most disarming ways. “I’d take good care of him, like I don’t think I could keep my hands off him. I’d be blowing him all the time - until my jaw hurt, then i’d just tell him to pick a hole and fuck a big, hot load of cum into it - hell, I’d probably let him do anything to me.”

“Tactful.”

“I’m not the one having a hard time reading between the lines.”

“That’s not - I’m not-”

“Into me?” Eunbi laughs, leaning forward, your last vestiges of personal space vanishing like a passing thought, and now she’s touching you - a hand on your thigh, higher, higher. “You want to fuck me so bad.”

The fucked up thing, beyond Eunbi being absolutely right, is that you’d rather die than try and lie through your teeth, than succumb in such austere fashion. This thing, this desire, this want, you understand it so intimately you could probably name it like you were christening it in a church. You grab a hold of her wrist, before her precocious fingers can discover how obviously right she is under the seam of your pants, and the suddenness of the challenge wipes the mirth from her face - pulls a small little sound out of her chest, leaves her eyes wide and uncharacteristically docile.

“Are you sure?” you ask, collected and calm, after you’ve both realized how small her wrist fits in your hand. “Is this really the game you want to play?” 

Eunbi’s head tips onto this angle, expression perfectly cavalier. “Oh,” she says, uncorking an impious grin, “why don’t you and I go figure that out.”

-

It’s hard to focus. You’ve got it all wrong, or whatever, practically right from the jump. Your first mistake was veering toward the restrooms tucked behind the bar, where Eunbi pulled at the corner of your sleeve to shoot you a skeptical look - are you fucking nuts, there’s single occupant washrooms upstairs - her explanation was sound, probably, she lost you quickly at: “would prefer no one hear me cum all over your cock.”

The second transgression is the kiss itself, a fucking honest mess. 

Eunbi’s perched on the sink, precariously, and as much as you’d rather be smoothing your hands up her curves, you’ve got one preoccupied at her hips, steadying her, the other pulling at your own clothes, slinging your jacket to the floor. It’s this sort of callow tangle of limbs, exchange of spit, imprecise groping - fuck, it actually hurts when your teeth bump together, or when Eunbi pulls a little too hard at your bottom lip - over and over, and your mouths keep missing each other, straying off to cheeks and chins. 

You expected there to be a touch more polish to her, for her to be the kind of girl above hooking up barefoot in a public restroom, maybe even preserve any of that infamous intrigue. But those open-mouthed kisses she has leaving marks on your jaw, making welts on your neck do little to help you shrug off the impropriety here, hanging like a sorry cloud. Because you’re barreling toward something desperate and clumsy and hot and needy - so utterly raunchy in all the right ways.

“C’mere,” Eunbi says, smile stretching soft and devastatingly sweet, hardly fussing when you slip your hand beneath her jaw - it takes a moment, a touch of experimentation, until you’re together working toward a common goal. She twists the end of your tie over her wrist once, twice, anchors herself against you, and her legs open wider, a heel hooking around your thigh. The embers in her half-lidded eyes tell a story, tell you you to firm up your grip, clutch her, get rough with her, toss her around - she can take it, she can take more. 

Her chin gets set on the angle opposite yours as she starts to pull you in close, the heat in her breath coming closer, and she furrows a perfectly sculpted brow the moment she realizes it’s not reciprocal - that you’re not leaning into her, not pressing your tongue past her lips and grabbing her hair by the fistful - she squints, glowering. It’s actually not a bad look on her.

“Tell me something,” you say, skating your fingertips up her leg until they’re so close to the apex of her thigh you can feel her heat, radiating. “What were you expecting?”

“I try to never expect anything,” Eunbi tells you, and starts once more for your lips, only vexed again when you stiffen up, maintain the distance between you - stop her short at the limit of tantalizingly close.

“Eunbi,” you say, wry with dry laughter and peeking over her shoulder to the reflection in the mirror - backless; you can see the ridge of her spine from her ass all the way up to her neck when you slide her hair to the side. “This is not a dress you wear out with colleagues and friends. This is a take me home and have your wicked way with me kind of dress.”

Eunbi swallows; that’s how you know you caught her. “If the insinuation here is that I’m a slut, I’m not having any of it.”

“Why? Is that supposed to be some sort of secret?”

Her expression falls onto something rather unamused, a glib reply waiting for release at the tip of her tongue, until finally she says, “do you get off on being withholding or some other bull-”

The word vanishes in a sharp inhale the moment you press your hand up between her legs. 

“Oh god.” Eunbi’s entire body shudders, nerves bundled and tight and ready to fire at the slightest excitation. Honestly, you’re not even doing anything; you’re pushing fabric into her cunt, and fuck, Eunbi’s already this trigger-happy. The demanding, quick-tempered vixen with something to prove, and she’s already melting over the slightest touch. 

Hell, just listen in on those little stuttering breaths falling off her lips when you begin to circle your fingers, slowly, when you reach down further to where she’s so hot, so wet-

You press down and she hiccups.

“Ah, I think I get it now,” you start, watching Eunbi’s lip wobble as the heel of your palm spreads flatter and flatter over her clit, pressure indiscriminate and nowhere close to absolving. “You want me to believe that somehow, you’re a total romantic.”

Eunbi’s mouth slacks slightly as she sighs. “Aren’t we all entitled to a little fantasy?”

“Has the part where I fuck you senseless in a public restroom always worked into that?” you ask, digging deeper, drenching her underwear in her own slick. “Or is that a new development?”

“You’re really testing the limits of your charm here.”

“I dunno. I think the fact that you’re dripping down your thighs means I’m doing all right,” you say, holding onto a smirk that you’re half-sure she’s contemplating slapping off your face.

“What do you want?” she asks, shimmying her hips against you, voice softening into delicate capitulation. “Want me to tell you that I’ve been dreaming about it? Want to know that I think about you when I’m alone - when I’ve got my fingers inside me and I’m sobbing into a pillow - that I’m picturing you fucking railing Minju - picturing how your hands would feel at my waist, on my tits, around my neck - imagining just how good you’d fuck me?”

You nearly snort in amusement. “Oh, want a lot more than that.” 

“Then hurry up,” she says - before the attraction ferments. And she sighs musingly when you press your fingers past elastic, find a touch where she needs you, the unmistakable shiver of real contact. “Kiss me properly and pull me apart.”

You tilt Eunbi’s chin up and place your mouth on hers. Kissing her once, twice, until she realizes it’s not even close to enough, drawing in to kiss you back that much harder, all unknowing and candid - like she never once cared for subtlety in her methods of seduction.

Almost absentmindedly, your fingers had already danced over her entrance, rubbed and touched and felt and begun to push. And god, she’s so incredibly wet - not that the push isn’t slow, so unhurried you can feel Eunbi wanting to cry out in frustration as you get deeper, feel her squeeze onto you, just a knuckle inside her, then a second. She barely manages to hush out a complaint into your lips when you drag them back, returning the perfect roughness in your fingers to her clit and applying all this agonizingly-too-gentle pressure. Do anything, she said - said she’d let you; could’ve said, fuck me, ruin me; should’ve told you, no idea what I really want other than for you fuck my brains out, so please take off your clothes and help me figure it out -

It’s actually kind of adorable, that she has to break her lips away from yours to ask for more.

But only a loud, smacking kiss and the length of a heavy exhale later, Eunbi’s tongue slides into your mouth, slipping gently against yours, and flicks up at your teeth as you press the curl of your index finger back inside her. She cries gently, this pitchy little feminine sound, just when you fuck her open with another. You could take all the time you want, you reckon, just pretend Eunbi’s not already all wound up and needy - pussy soaked and hot and begging beneath loose fabric - pretend she isn’t wrapping her slender fingers around your wrist to hold you firm, keep your fingertips present and reliable: something she can buck her hips into, something she can fuck until she’s gasping for you to stop.

“Fuck.” Her moan hums right into your mouth, thin, stretching out on a broken breath as the pad of your thumb skates over her clit, again, again, lighter, barely a touch this time, gentle and tender, and, well, conflicting - because look, everything about this is such a fucking awful idea - you’re going to walk out into a sea of judgement with kiss-swollen lips, hair disheveled and bothered like you’d trekked through a windstorm, with Eunbi hanging on your waist, knees wobbling and perfectly complicit to the crime. 

You’ve given the thought barely a moment’s attention when Eunbi’s grip on your wrist goes white-knuckle tight, like she can taste the apprehension on your lips. She tugs on your tie, hard - don’t stop, come, closer - like she’d literally die if you stop fucking her with your fingers.

“Fuck, you’re so wet for me,” you say in the spaces between these stinging, deep kisses into her cheek, her jaw, letting her body slump forward when you let go of her waist and start sliding your hand up her flat stomach, scrunching and furling the material of her dress up around her hips. She totters a moment, feet barely reaching the floor how you have her balanced on the lip of the sink, but you can’t help it: you need to get a hand up, higher, over her ribs, onto her chest -

Eunbi gasps the moment your fingers sink in, loudly, and you’re not even going to try and give her an explanation - fucking christ, her tits are incredible.

“How messy,” you tell her, enjoying how it makes her cheeks start to burn red, and with just that, you’re sure, with fingers becoming fast and frenzied. It’s audible, the slick on your hand, working through the thick of her heat, the tension in her clench. “So fucking messy, I bet you’re close baby, so close - close to cumming on my fingers.”

She purses her lips, chin tucked into where her collarbones meet, and closes her eyes. You think she’s readying some riposte, some quip to needle, something she’d lid her eyes and smirk first to tell you with poison laced in her voice, seethed in sarcasm, in spite. 

“I mean, Eunbi, look at you,” you drawl huskily, an effort to lure the words out of her, “and I haven’t even gotten my mouth on you yet.”

Her whole body sighs, a concerted effort; she’s panting, sinking her teeth into her lip, and it happens so suddenly, near all at once - those elegant lines in her face starting to twist, betraying that usual sculpted visage of perfection - at the end of a squalling stretch for air, she starts to beg. 

“Please,” she mewls, escaping her lips pliant and meek.

And fuck if that’s anything like the bite you’ve come to expect, the serrated edge of the girl who was amusing herself just moments ago with how you rattled and ruffled from behind a glass of liquor - Eunbi, all cunning and guile - jesus, it’s not even close:

“Oh, god, do it, do it, use my pussy however you want, fuck, want it so bad-” Her hair is falling into her face. Skin getting hot and dewy with sweat. She told you earlier that she’d kill you if you ripped her dress, said you had the look of a dress ripper about you - and now she’s looking at you like she might kill you if you don’t. “-anything, I’ll do anything, gods, please just let me cum.”

“Baby,” you murmur against her neck, a pet name you’re slipping into a little too easily. The possession, the way you say mine, you promise it’s all instinct. “Who could’ve ever guessed you’d be this needy?”

The pale column of skin beneath her jaw reveals more of itself to you the faster you drag your fingers through her cunt. She’s recovering from a curl of your digits against that spot that might just be able to get her screaming, and then it’s your thumb: each circle around her swollen clit reducing her to little more than ragged breathing and that causeway of a word, pleading, please, please, please.

You’d spent more time fantasizing about this than you care to admit, though when you tug the neckline of her dress down, free her breast from beneath the tight fabric, roll your thumb over her nipple, and pinch, it’s clear this is nothing like you imagined. It’s so much fucking more: her face winding into a look of equal parts pain, pleasure, eyes scrunching, lips hanging open - she can’t even say anything when you pull harder on the dress, pull her other tit up to your mouth and start to suck, hard - a heavy moan, whining; she doesn’t tell you to stop.

“Do it,” she demands, gulping for her next breath. “I’m so close.”

You haven’t written it off yet, but you also haven’t the slightest idea how she’ll come back from this one, flirting with the boundary at desperate and pathetic, responding to your touch, your fingers, your mouth like you’d spent a lifetime studying what makes her tick. This might be the only time between you that you’ve ever stumbled this close to anything like an upperhand, you recognize, and you’re not going to pass up an opportunity like it, milking it for all it’s worth:

“You ever have someone do this to you, Eunbi?” you ask her when your lips break all that cruel suction around her nipple - it’s red, swollen, aching, and it’s a great start. The throb between her legs isn’t growing any less urgent either, pulsing vigorously onto your fingertips and leaking all over your hand, her thighs, it’s so fucking sloppy and hot and that perfectly submissive expression on her face just looks so, so good on her. (You’re really leaning into it.) “Fuck you with one of your dresses bunched up over your hips? Take you into a bathroom and get you moaning and panting until you admit you’re a total slut? Fuck, I could do this until you can’t remember your own name, pull your underwear back up your legs all soaking and messy-”

“No,” Eunbi says, exasperated, and she chokes on her voice when your thumb digs harder into the puffy lips of her cunt, pushes this exact pressure on her tender clit. You don’t think her eyes could get any clearer, needier, until she starts shaking her head, saying, “you - you’d be the first.”

She practically blue-screens after that, words getting lost somewhere in the pangs of her own agitated pleasure. And like putty, sinking backward into the counter, you spread her legs open wider. Press a kiss into her forehead, skin all hot and sweaty. She almost loses it right then and there when you start reminding her she’s gorgeous, how good her name sounds on your lips, so pretty when she cums like this and then- 

Oh.

There she goes. 

“Fuck, you’re - god, fuck, I’m - fuck.” Eunbi hisses out your name, panting for air, and her brittle words fall straight to the floor, smash against the tile, and shatter into a million pieces. Cumming, she adds, two or three times for good measure, and you hold her firm, hold her still. Keep her from sliding off the sink so you might even kiss her hard. Feel her come undone.

Maybe it’s the praise; more likely the tempo of your thumb tapping against her swollen bud, again, again. The only thing you know is that the sound of it alone - over the squelch of your fingers fucking her through it, slow and tender like you have all the time in the world - see, that’s a masterpiece in and of itself. 

Eunbi’s chest rolls and twitches as you draw your fingers out of her pussy, soaked, clenching at nothing, and drag them up along her waist so she can feel just how much damage you’ve caused, that for all her sloppiness, it’s because of you.

“Here,” you say to her, with two sticky fingers at her jaw, “I know you want to taste yourself.”

Beyond the visual in front of you, you’re kind of stuck on how impetuous, impulsive, how utterly lewd it all is - opening her mouth and fitting your fingertips between her teeth. You scissor your fingers, let her lick her own slick off your you, and when you press her tongue down behind her teeth she starts to suck. It’s delightful, you think, she’s so gorgeous and somehow, flushed and fucked and sweaty, she looks perfect. Never been so stunning.

“Such a good girl,” you tell her, almost maliciously.

And it’s instant - Eunbi sinking further into the counter, her shoulders slumped to the cold mirror, knuckles knocking the bowl of the sink. There’s a hum coming up from her throat when you say it again, getting stuck on your fingers until she spits them out and looks at you with wide, tear-filled eyes, all glassy and brilliant, like you know the answers to all the riddles of the universe. Okay, so maybe it really is the praise, you realize, a weakness, a loose thread, you might never be able to stop yourself from pulling at it. You’d never want to.

“Been so patient, haven’t you? Your pussy is fucking creaming for me Eunbi, so fucking messy, you poor thing.” You’re lifting her panties to the side, assuring her in half sentences and leaving the rest to the sound of your zipper coming undone. “Gonna fuck you now, get my cock in this pretty little pussy of yours, don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you baby, just be still and hold on for me-”

“God.” Eunbi startles at the touch of your cock running over her slick, and she starts blinking back into reality, legs bracketing around your hips. Do it - she’s gathering an angry fistful of shirt, pulling at your tie, clamoring for you, all desperation, no composure, as if your mistakes were made for her - do it, do it, and she breathes your name against your mouth, lips trembling, “please.”

Days, weeks, months maybe, the conclusion’s long foregone, inevitable: your cock sinks straight into her cunt.

Jesus. Fuck. Where to start? Eunbi’s eyebrows twist, lips part - with just a wicked, sharp breath of air, she immediately comes undone. So, that might be as good a place as any.

You know by the way she melts, the way her body is coiling tighter around you, clinging to you like you might be able to hold it all together - like you’re not fucking her open, pressing deeper inside her, hotter around you with every passing inch.  

“I cannot believe,” Eunbi starts, voice shredded, and the rest of it is so incoherent, so blathering and baleful, that you’re altogether unsure if it’s in protest of you ruining her cunt, or if you’re not ruining it enough. Even though she’s so unbelievably wet, she’s every bit as tight, and you end up prompting this unattractive groan from her throat when you motion your hips forward, just a fraction, before pulling back again. “Oh my-”

You’re trying not to laugh but it’s slipping out quietly, and Eunbi just glares at you, the vibrations from your diaphragm going straight between her legs, where she’s still throbbing and unduly sensitive. A few disheveled strands of her hair end up in your mouth as she fidgets about in your grip. A few more as you ease in further - until your balls are flush against her ass and Eunbi has both ankles hooked around your thighs. Beyond the sweltering heat of Eunbi’s cunt, you’ve got thoughts, photographically vivid, racing through your head: you lifting her small body up, getting your hands under her thighs and pounding her without remorse - turning her over and bending her over her sink, watching her tits bounce in the mirror, face wracked as she cums like that, and you’ll get there - just that right now, seating yourself in her pussy and nuzzling your face into the crook of her neck is more than plenty to hone in on.

“Fuck, your cock, it’s-” Eunbi sputters, and it takes a beat to even realize you’re completely inside her, right to the hilt.

And you aren’t making any more sense of how she trembles than of the fusillade of curses tossed in your general direction. Her legs remain locked behind you, holding you motionless - making it difficult to not laugh at her inanity on display, squirming graceless beneath you.

Incredible, is the conclusion you both come to as her cheeks flood again with color, and you start circling your hips into her, moving as much as the confines of her legs - the inelegant entrapment - might allow.

It’s almost cruel: Eunbi gasps when you end up brushing against her tender clit, and you pause, thinking- 

(Like this, half naked, dress bundled around her waist, you can take whatever you want. Every now and again you look up and see your reflection, see yourself towering over Eunbi’s lithe frame - oh, the options - they’re nearly endless.)

-she simply growls at you when you inch her hips forward from where they’re perched and do it again.

“I can’t fuck you unless you let go,” you tell her, ducking down and finding her breast with your mouth. 

“If I let go,” Eunbi starts, and her voice is jagged with strain, breath steadying, “are you actually going to fuck me, or are you just going to keep teasing?”

“Oh, Eunbi, believe me.” You’re kissing up her chest, her collarbones, pressing your lips sweetly to the hollow of her throat. “I’m going to fuck you until you’re screaming, promise.”

Eunbi holds her gaze to yours, tips up her chin, and says, half daring, “I’m holding you to that,” and as her bind loosens, she tugs your face towards hers by the bottom of your tie. Hard - it’s hardly even a murmur as she leans in, pressing your brow to hers - harder. A rhythm emerges in your hips against hers, though it only complicates the demands: more, please, need it, don’t stop.

But the drag of it is amazing, your cock gliding through the wet heat of her cunt - squeezed tight onto you and fitting you like a glove. So tight, as if she’d been made for you, incomparably coiled around you, and it’s even more perfect as you start to truly fuck into her. Fast and deep and assuring you’d stay true to your word, that you’d get her fucking screaming with it. Each time you pull back and slam into her again, hard enough that she shifts half an inch toward the mirror, you’re listening to that wounded noise, keening out of her chest, punctuated by the way she shudders, bracing against you.

“God,” you rasp through gritted teeth, stealing a delighted moan as she spreads her legs wider for you, stealing several more. “This pussy, fuck, is incredible, Eunbi” - she’s so wet and turned on that you just fucking rail her, that she lets you, that she loves it, to the point where you’re reminding yourself to breathe - “what a good little cocksleeve you are, you’re so fucking wet.”

“Better?” Eunbi is struggling to stay upright, jaw slacked and slumping against the mirror like a puppet cut from its strings. “Better than her, right?”

“Hm,” you say, and the hesitation alone is enough for the corner of her mouth to pull up into a tiny smile. Something she knows she can hook into, something she can work with. “We’ll just have to see.”

There are tears visible at the end , and her words are quickly becoming slurred and mixed up as your fingers turn threats into reality, bruises at her waist, her thighs, her tits, her neck - you’re marking her like she’s yours, like it isn’t dangerous, like it doesn’t spell trouble for both of you. So when she musters the strength to perk up, look you straight on while you pound her cunt recklessly, and meekly say, “be honest,” it’s far too impossible to deny her anything.

“The best, Eunbi,” you start. She doesn’t know where the lip service starts, where it ends, but just hearing you mutter out her name is enough to get her swooning.

It’s not that you don’t understand the irony, that Minju is downstairs somewhere telling a hundred people she doesn’t know where you are, looking pretty and put together, and you’re saving your honesty for this girl, breaking her further to pieces with each thrust her into tight, sweaty body, each stroke into her sloppy, aching hole. You do understand it, and when Eunbi starts whining, sobbing, moaning, you just can’t be bothered to care. “So perfect on my cock, baby, now be good for me - show me how perfect this pretty little cunt is, want you to cum again for me, want to see what a mess you can be, Eunbi.”

You end up with a hand underneath her, the other in the lose waves of hair behind her head, fingers splaying out against the base of her skull, and - fuck, the new angle you settle into when you pull her tiny body up onto your cock, not to mention the depth - it’s wanton, lustful, it’s thoughtless: you’re fucking her so hard and fast that all she can do is throw is her arms around your shoulders and weave curses into her ragged breathing, thinning, threadbare, “oh fuck, oh, jesus, fuck yes, there, your fucking cock, just like that, fucking christ.”

She barely even has one foot on the ground, toes dangling onto the tile, you realize after you finish chastising her dirty mouth. Completely at your beck and call.

Not that it was ever going to make a difference. You fuck her harder, until she’s shaking with it, until she’s crying out, embarrassment long forgotten. She’s so fucked, breathy moans turning to screams, to whimpers, seams cracking into fissures - you’re not hurting her, but fuck if that isn’t the boundary you’re daring to cross. You bottom out in her pussy, over and over; you’re destroying it, ruining it, and she’s clinging to you like wet clothes, like it might soothe her, like her life depends on it.

Eunbi moans when you draw your hips back and nearly leave the perfect heat of her cunt. And when you bury yourself back into her, she writhes.

You look up from the shadowy spot where your cock is disappearing between her legs, and her eyes are flaring again, teeth sinking into her lip as you seek out her chest and start playing with her tits. There, she wants to say, eyelids hooded and voice purring, that’s more like it. But your thumb flicks at her nipple, pert and pointy, coaxing out a quieter reaction - quiet beneath the haggard recoil her body makes in order to sheathe your cock, the gentle tremor at the end of each thrust, stomach muscles contracting under your hand. It’s too much. She only closes her mouth. Lets it fall open again. Sighs.

“You’re going to cum again, aren’t you?” you ask, breath landing hot against her face, agitating the flush in her cheekbones. “You’re going to cum all over this cock.” It’s in those eyes; she’s so incredibly close, but Eunbi holds fast to what shred of dignity hasn’t since vanished out of sight, throat working hard to swallow, and she shakes her head, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

In fact, she’s murmuring nonsensically at you, and for a moment you see a hand on her neck, thumbprint searing into her throat, but the image fades as she moans again, hips jumping, palm slapping the sink. It’s the want, the need, for everything you have to give her, want for you inside her, maybe forever more - and want and want for anything that might release her pleasured agony. It’s fucking filthy.

So bend, you tell her, don’t break.

(You’ve never fucked anyone like this either, you think, not Minju, not anyone - fingers skating up the ridge of her back, face buried in the hair falling over her shoulder, taking careful note of how you’re taking Eunbi apart. 

How you might ever put her back together.)

“Shit,” she cries out sharply, spine arched and straining against you as - fucking finally - her orgasm rips through her. You’re watching carefully as you fuck into her quivering pussy, listening mostly, once the pressure starts to build behind your eyes. There’s your name torn from her lips (oh god), and how she starts to tremble (oh god), trying to draw you (oh god) deeper inside her while she (oh my fucking god) lets it flood through her.  

It’s a lot to take in. Near impossible to focus on any one thing. For fuck’s sake, even the smell of it is divine, of perfume and sex and vanilla and sin.

You’re grabbing Eunbi’s waist again, so hard she yelps, lips parting, struggling for breath every time you fuck her tight little pussy onto you, but she can’t quite say anything. Not yet. Your cock is still too hard, throbbing madly inside her, and she’s near the point of simply collapsing. 

You touch her mouth, tip it gently closed. And the docile way she looks up at you is a reminder that you had readied a quip, something about the mess between her legs, that she’s flustering and incoherent and sobbing and how it’s so unlike her. But it’s gone now. Lost to the lust and need crackling in your own brain, you figure. You’d been daydreaming a mile a minute about fucking Eunbi on a good day, and now you’re seeing her here, like this.

It takes the velvety drag through her cunt, once, twice, you’re pounding her so fast, not even trying to hold on, shortening your breath, biting your cheek, counting out the strokes - three, four, five -“Come on,” Eunbi manages in the spaces between her soft, bitten back moans, “do it, wanna feel that big cock fuck a creampie deep inside me, wanna feel your hot cum leak out of me.”

You really could. Because she feels fucking unbelievable, and now you’re imagining it: getting reckless and stupid and filling her perfect little pussy with all your cum; risk it, get her pregnant, you tell yourself, fuck it deep enough inside her to make it a certainty - the mental image alone is enough to send you over the edge. You’re sure of that. It has before.

“Eunbi,” you stammer, “this pussy feels… I’m gonna-”

“I know,” she murmurs, “I know.” Her eyes are glassy, mouth cocked back, half-smiling. “Do whatever you want.” Five foot nothing of immaculate pulchritude and irresistible peril, she looks pristine on the end of your cock, tits in your hands, brow sweating, mouth opening, telling you to cum, to do it, want you to cum, just fucking use her.

“Fuck,” you spit, slipping your cock out of her at the last moment - fucking into your fist - cumming. Messily. Explosively. Eunbi still choking for air in fits and starts, your other hand still wringing her waist.

Though it can’t be more than a few seconds, the difference between you releasing that load inside her and the way it instead winds up everywhere else: in her panties, against the swollen lips of her pussy, the crease of her thigh - how some leaks and spills down her leg, onto the floor beneath the sink. There’s a dress ruiner in you after all. “God,” you add, fighting exhaustion, and Eunbi simply crumples against you, kissing you like you’ve never been kissed before - a long, smooth slide of her lips that leaves you both gasping in its wake.

“So.” Eunbi’s hand is between her legs, assessing the damages, accounting the cum all over her and soaking through the fabric of her underwear. She just raises an eyebrow at you, charming, challenging. “You came all over me.”

“What, you really think I’d cum in you?”

Her eyes squint, and her nose scrunches. It’s winsome, in a way. 

Sure, she’s kind of a disaster - the once-carefully-styled waves of her hair are in tatters, makeup running in every direction, tits hanging out of her bra and spilling over the top of her dress, still barefoot and completely unfazed by it. Dismantled is a good look for her, even if she doesn’t appreciate it: reaching into her purse, this emergency kit of wipes, a mascara brush, lipstick. Raring to do a little triage.

“Yeah,” you insist, “you’re out of your mind.”

The droll laugh she gives you when you finally let her go is not antagonistic either, but as with a lot of those things Eunbi does, the click of her tongue, the haughty expressions, the mannerisms, they were all becoming less threatening and more fetching - possibly more now that you’ve seen the face she makes when she cums.

“I think it’s just force of habit.” Having slid from the sink and onto the floor, Eunbi pitches up on her feet to kiss you again, and you don’t try to fight it any more than if she had beaten you in some sporting game and extended her hand to shake yours. When she pulls her lips off you, she adds, “which, you know, serendipitous and all that.”

“Thanks for the ten-dollar-word.”

“Lucky,” she reiterates.

“I know what it means.”

“If I had to guess… Minju doesn’t let you, does she?” And it becomes immediately apparent to you what Eunbi’s playing at. She’s got her teeth sinking into the long game, anticipating that you'll cross your arms, tell her never again: that thing at the gala, the kissing - we can't.

“Can you stop.”

“Does she?”

“Um,” you say, considering carefully for a moment which half-truths you want to tell, which ones you already have. “No, she does.”

Eunbi shifts her body a little, toward you, but not quite close enough to touch you - she’s bending slightly at the waist to scoop her tits back into her bra, her dress. The corner of her lip quirks further, and she asks, completely unrepentant, “does she let you cum in her ass?”

Your throat clicks, swallowing - you can’t even imagine it well enough to begin to know how to lie about it; bashful, everything obvious and on display - so, yeah, you are kind of fucked.

-

“Your shirt isn’t buttoned right by the way.”

“Here,” you say, still stuffing fabric back into your pants, “stand in front of me in case someone we know happens to come around.”

Eunbi crowds you to the wall, almost too aggressively, and she watches a staff member of the venue walk by carrying a platter full of shrimp tails and used napkins. “You’ve got cum on your pants too.”

“One crisis at a time, okay.”

“What are you going to tell Minju?”

“Nothing.”

“I mean… what is your approach, like when we get over there and-” Eunbi takes a step forward, fitting so perfectly beneath your chin, looking up like she’d discovered something worth marveling at. “Oh my god.” She laughs out loud. “How did I get a hickey under there?”

With just one finger returning to her waist, far gentler than the last time it’d been there, you push her back ever so slightly. “I’m just going to be myself.”

“Hm, bad idea.”

“Oh, alright then.”

Eunbi clutches a hand over her chest like she’d been wounded. “I just mean you’re kind of a nervous wreck.”

“I’ll be fine,” you tell her, now properly buttoned, and sliding out from her small-yet-surprisingly-overbearing presence. “And I told you, I bruise easy.”    

“Yeah, no kidding.”

-

History, is the word you’re looking for. Minju and Eunbi have history.

It always starts the same way:

A kiss to one cheek, the other, and the two are immediately falling back on placid smiles and the kind of laughter that seems at a glance to be genuine and real. Almost theatrical, the performance. 

Though Eunbi’s always had that chip on her shoulder - says she knows what it’s like to be young and pretty and famous - and when they’re together Minju always manages to draw from this near-infinite supply of bashful and modest. Actually, that’s more or less her whole thing. 

The mistake you figure, if anyone were to ask you, which no one has one yet - the mistake is in thinking you’re the only one that knows Minju can’t stand Eunbi. Even though she does a great job of hiding it, you might be singular in regards to who gets to hear Minju go off in the privacy of your apartment - arrogant, vain, conceited bitch - but you’re not alone here. No, no.

Because Eunbi - who is perfectly aware just how much disdain Minju has for her - catches your stare. And instead of being content with how you’ve found the ideal spot to stand off to the side to avoid this whole minefield of a situation, she waves you over. Way too enthusiastically.

That has always set her apart. She would invite mischief, if she thought that it would set the scene.

-

It’s not more than a week before your paths cross again. Perhaps you’re tangling with fate. Perhaps it’s out of your control. Perhaps, you consider carefully, that’s more convenient. You see her first: waiting for a cab at the taxi stand outside the broadcast studio, cardigan sliding down around her shoulders, verily bedraggled in the wind.

The ends of her hair are in the corners of her mouth, and those long shadows cast from the evening sun dance across her face to paint those features baroque, build an image serene and stately - statuesque.

(She’s stunning as ever.)

That Eunbi is even here of all places is a coincidence, but her dimples deepen when her eyes meet yours, like she’s finally found something she was long looking for. “How serendipitous,” she says to you again, smiling.

“Right.” You grimace back, self-effacing. “Lucky.”

“You know,” she says after a moment, “our apartments really aren’t that-”

“Far,” you say, seeing the conclusion that she’s leaping at, and the next to make things become extremely complicated is Eunbi, which is so her that it makes your fists clench in your jacket pockets without realizing it.

“It’d be cheaper, I’m just saying, if we split a cab.”

“What if I told you,” you say, after a long while, “I get reimbursed for the commute either way.”

“Do you?”

“No,” you end up saying, bluntly.

“So, purely a hypothetical,” she suggests, leaning into your personal space, and your eyes drop immediately, past her bare shoulders, past the neckline of a matching top, pointedly to her knees beneath a pair of denim shorts. Her whole outfit is simple, but with a figure like hers, clearly intended to provoke a reaction, one that you’re not going to give her. You’re above that. 

“Yeah.” You tilt your head. “Sure.”

Her finger’s tapping at her chin, and it’s sort of cute the way she does it, making the gesture seem about half as patronizing as it should be. “Then just for good company’s sake?

“You-” It comes out uneven enough to get you chuckling to yourself, kind of nervously. Her eyes light up as you swallow back on your drying mouth - a beacon, lighthouse in a storm, safe harbor, siren’s call and all. Your gut is trying to tell you, danger, and then suggests you dive in headfirst. “You might be giving yourself too much credit.”

“Just entertain the thought for me.”

“Like a hypothetical, you mean.”

She laughs, and it has her eyes crinkling at the corners. Likable, you think immediately. Beautiful, right after that, and coincidence, as it were, ends there - just as abruptly.

You’ve made many selfish decisions in your life, but climbing into the back of that cab might be the most out of all of them - Eunbi just smiles when you arrive next to her. You never stood a chance against that, probably. It’s the Orpheus thing. The monkey’s paw thing. It’s not possible to lean out of a moving vehicle enroute toward collision, stop the wheels from spinning when they’re already spun, and unmake the wish. 

The blur of passing street lights streak across Eunbi’s face and present it to you in broken images, cycling like phases of the moon, until finally, an overpass sees everything go dark, and you feel her small body slide across the backseat, the heat in her chest as she presses into you.  

Her lips are featherlight upon yours, gentle and trepid. For the first time, she seems unsure, as if she didn’t think this would happen. Then once more, with a taste of desperation and sinking into the dark corner of the leather seat, she kisses you like she knows you, pulling tight onto the collar of your shirt like she knows you’ll kiss her back - like she knows that all you’ve been doing, at the end of the day, is delaying the inevitable.

-

Eunbi’s apartment, actually, is rather modest. More different, and less however you expected.

The walls are painted alabaster, not white, which is only a color you recognize because Minju had waffled between that and eggshell for weeks before tasking you to paint three of the four walls of your living room - only later to realize she wanted something darker as you were priming the fourth. There’s a small powder room by the door, a tiny closet overflowing with jackets and coats and all sorts of outfits you’ve probably stripped off Eunbi in your head a thousand times over - and what the space lacks in size, more than makes up for in the massive set of south facing windows, benefit of an open layout, daylight warm and diffuse.

Well, at least that’s how you imagine it. The sun set while you weren’t paying attention, your thoughts, hands, lips, all preoccupied in the back of the cab, so you’re left with only the recessed lighting, dimmed down to dreamlike allure.

Not that you've ever been one with an eye for detail. No, Minju will happily corroborate the fact. Your talents start at your wit, end at your charm. But it’s just where you’re at - head tipped over the back of the sofa - you’ve got your eyes anywhere besides where Eunbi’s kneeling in front of you, head bobbing up and down between your thighs. 

In spite of your plans to fold her over any surface sturdy and horizontal, you ended up like this, jeans not even half way down around your thighs. On instinct, you’re threading your fingers through her silky hair, though you can feel the glare she shoots up as you tighten your grip and start to pull. It’s not that Eunbi takes issue with you fucking her face inherently. It’s nothing like that at all.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” you murmur softly, voice wrecked. “You take my cock so well. Your smart little mouth was made for this, wasn’t it?”

Between messy kisses in the cab, the lobby, the elevator, while fumbling for her keys, she’d detailed to you all the things she wanted you to do to her, how she wanted you to fuck her, how she was going to make you cum. See, her mouth is gorgeous, even more vulgar, and she wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip: you’d understand exactly what that mouth could do. 

Because there’s the angle you’re now both familiar with, that you can fuck her apart, get her flushed, faltering and fucked into perfect submission until you steal your own release - that you’ve been running the memory back all damn week - but she figures you ought to know that she can make you cum without you ever needing to lift a finger. And given how sure she is running her tongue all over you, sucking your cock, mouth hot, unashamedly sloppy, fingers curled around your shaft in strokes of genius-

Fuck, she probably will.

Not that you’re one for understatement, mouth falling open as you sigh backward into the upholstery - feels amazing, you’re explaining to her when you’re not chewing your lip, so good at that, a little more, your mouth baby, fuck, it’s incredible. Like she doesn’t already know. 

Eunbi just slides her lips down your shaft so perfectly in response. All that wet suction near fatal. But it’s not what gets you to swear audibly, a low rumble from your chest that says she’s on the right track. It’s the look on her face: pouty pink lips cushioning your cockhead, parted around your shaft, sinking further now, back at the top again, spit drooling from the corners of her mouth. Her eyebrows are upturned, and when she hollows her cheeks some - lifts her eyelids and fixes that gaze on you - her irises are gleaming in juxtaposition, this doe-eyed girl blinking up at you, innocently, like she’s not taking your cock further into her mouth, fucking you until she chokes. 

Those eyes half-lidded, unknowing, and staring straight into you- 

She’ll make you cum, they read, blinking, deep in her throat. Her lashes flutter. She coughs. You’ll cum more.

Though for your part, it’s not like you’re aren’t handing yourself over to the sensation either, indulging in everything Eunbi’s mouth has to offer, what more you’re sure still to take. It’s hot and wet and her tongue is even better licking around the tip of your cock than it was pressed flat underneath it - you’re settling into it, just starting to rock your hips up to meet the softness at the back of her throat, and she nods her head down twice more, bathing more of you in her spit each time, sputtering. You’re not the easiest to take, but she’s almost casually contented, or something more smug, the uppish look of a girl who's never backed away from a challenge - who will happily go for more - and without fuss, she takes your entire length between her lips. 

“Oh, fuck me-” you mutter, going speechless the moment she starts to suck.

And with her nose to your belly, Eunbi is straining, fighting for breath. It’s not an accident that she’s making a total fucking mess, drool and precum dripping down your shaft. She’d take more of you, wet on her chin, on her fingers, she’d pull you further into her little mouth, like she’d have it no other way. Still, her tongue licks nonchalantly past the seal of her lips, laps at your balls, and you think you’re going to lose it when she realizes it’ll get you to shiver, how you won’t ask for more, but she can just keep doing it again, again.

You bury your face in your hands as you suck in your next breath. You’re leaking cum actually, only a little, and Eunbi just keeps blowing you like you aren’t.

Fantasies will never work again, not after this, because for all the times you’ve imagined Eunbi’s lips around you, you’ve never come up with anything remotely close. It’s not even clear if this talent of hers is natural, god-given, or if behind each of her coy expressions and holier-than-thou moments of proud eminence she’s secretly an insatiable cockslut, but man, the girl is really good at sucking cock.  

Maybe the tricky part about this, if you even want to begin to get into it (you do not) - allowing yourself a small taste of intimacy has sparked this want for so much more. Even when things were good, Minju wasn’t getting her mouth on you like this. You can’t put your finger on it, the last time you’ve had anything as satisfying as the press of Eunbi’s lips around you, this mess of dark slippery hair bobbing up and down in your lap lazily and unbothered, mouth making all these wet noises like she’s yours and nothing more - like she never will be - and fuck, it’s irresistable. Her tongue curls around you again, and she makes her jaw go slack until more spit drools down the length of your cock, lathering in her fingers and twisting around your shaft - it scratches at itches you didn’t even know you had; nascent itches, silent ones, itches cloaked as something else.

Your breath stutters, stumbling into an embarrassing little moan after Eunbi pops her mouth off your cock, and a fleeting trick of a grin rushes across her face. She picks up on where you’re at instantly: “Aren’t you, like, kinda quiet?”

“There’s a lot going through my head right now,” you tell her, and that’s something she knows she can play along with, reveling in how you swallow at nothing when she hooks her hand behind her back and frees her bra from her shoulders. Her tits settling perfectly into place. “Just to be clear,” you sigh, “I’m going to cum in your mouth if you keep doing it like that.”

She tugs your jeans all the way down to your ankles. Arches an eyebrow. “And?”

“It’s called being decent, just something I'm working on.”

“Oh,” Eunbi says, returning her grip around your cock. Her hands are tiny, stacked one on top of the other, and she pumps them slowly, knowing that the abundance of spit and precum in her fingers makes it feel amazing. Every little flick of her wrists every bit as unbearable. “Now you care about decency; the guy who’s cheating on his-”

“Watch it,” you say, rough, “I could go without the reminder.”

Eunbi’s grin flickers a little wider. “Still the guilty conscious, huh?”

You think on it, a moment too long probably, because on one hand, she’s right. On the other - “I’m not going to say it’s guiltless.”

“Okay simple,” Eunbi shrugs, and pulls herself away from you, suggesting, “just touch yourself.” 

That’s one way to go about it. You wonder if this is the logic her brain operates on daily. It’d explain a lot.

“That’s like getting away with it on a technicality.”

“It’s an orgasm,” Eunbi tuts, “you’re not robbing a bank.” There’s a brief silence while she brings her palm up over her eyes, peeking through her fingers. “Here, see, I’m not even looking.” 

“I’m going to go ahead and just point out that you’re suggesting I jerk off in your living room.”

Eunbi’s hands drop to her sides, before tracking up her ribs and holding her breasts together into a cleavage that is way too inviting for anyone’s sake. You’re enchanted. Beguiled, maybe.

“Or.” Her gaze tapers in on something. God only knows what exactly your tell is; the quirk in your brow, the slightly-more-than-usual-avoidant gaze, something about your lips, the way you’re biting them - that’s where she seems to have honed in. And she’s smoking you out, completely. “I could probably just fuck you with my tits.”

That’s true. She could. And when that developed thought eventually coheres, you sigh profoundly.

She tips her head, interpreting the silence, and the small, wanting groan you make as she starts smashing her breasts closer together between her hands is definitely audible. Here, she’s telling you, with your cock, I know you want to. Even her lips are slanted into a subtle, knowing shape, steeped in all her femme-fatality, before finding the other smile she wears that pretends like it doesn’t know what she’s doing to you. “Is that what you want? You want your cock between my tits?”

“How exactly are those two things interchangeable?” you start, which isn’t anything even in the neighborhood of a no, so Eunbi simply leans forward, raising her chest between your thighs and teasing the sensitive part of your cock with just a brush of her nipple. Grazing down you, it’s hardly any contact at all, but the way you twitch suggests to her you’ll probably never recover from this. 

“Well.” Eunbi’s expression is lit aflame with revelation. “I’m just working in the space, thinking about things someone else could never do for you - things I could do for you.” 

For one thing - of which there are many - it’s a hell of a departure from the Eunbi who was sobbing against the bathroom mirror begging you to cum inside her. You can hear it. Her voice has the quality of a type of: victory. 

(Like she’s just come up with the most brilliant idea in the world. Which - maybe.)

“It’s perfectly normal you know,” she adds, almost as an aside, while trapping your cock between her breasts. “Literally everyone asks me to do this.”

You’re disarmed more than you realized, only able to nod along. Eunbi laces her fingers together, straightens herself, and right after passing her tongue under her top teeth to shoot you a smile, starts moving up and down against you. The way it feels, filthy hot and suffocatingly amazing, fuck, you’re letting out a sound that’s the bastardchild of a laugh and a whimper. You’re stunned. And the way it looks - your cockhead escaping her tits, disappearing again - is almost, almost the best part. 

“You’re, like, so hard right now,” she says, deservedly confident, and sliding her tits up around your cock again, she tilts her chin, trying to goad it out of you. “Should I let you cum all over these tits? Like, you’re already throbbing, honey.”

Let you cum, she says. If you weren’t struggling to cope with everything - every pass of soft skin smothered around your shaft sending you further to wit’s end and threatening to abandon you there - you’d recognize the writing on the wall: you’re in the palms of her hands, figuratively, literally. You’re in trouble.

“Oh, is that it?” she asks again. “Should I?”

“Fuck.” Without even thinking, you’re spreading your knees wider, inching toward the edge of the sofa, aching to get deeper between her cleavage. “Fine, yes, fuck-”

“Unh-uh,” says Eunbi flippantly. 

See, she’s enjoying this - eyes hot and radiant with authority - she’s enjoying this more than you. Her fingers relax, letting her tits fall around down onto your thighs. The pressure she was letting you enjoy, wrapping around your cock and making you speechless, starts to dwindle to something less brain-numbing. It’s unexpected: the lipstick around her mouth is smeared slightly, mascara under her smoky eyes still in disarray from how you’d had your cock in her throat, and now she’s the one taunting you.

“No, I’m serious,” she adds, “I want to hear you say it.”

Her brow furls immediately when you open your mouth, like she’s already very aware of what you’re going to say, and equally unimpressed.

“Say you want me to make you cum with my tits.”

“Eunbi.” Your voice comes out dry, damaged. “Please.”

“Hm?”

This wasn’t quite how you had pictured it when you’d seen Eunbi leaving the studio, looking like an angel, smiling like the devil; when she batted her lashes at you outside the taxi stand; when she clung to you and kissed you in the backseat of the cab; when that escalated the moment you walked through her foyer; when she dropped to her knees and started at your belt, your zipper, all without missing a beat. This is different. This is you, being desperate. 

“Please, with your tits Eunbi, fuck me with your tits.” 

Jesus. Now you know how that sounds. And the words are clear enough given the circumstances, but she’s staring at you expectantly, waiting for more. Waiting for you to concede. Waiting like you have no choice - “please, Eunbi, please make me cum, fuck, I need it so bad.”

“Oh.” Eunbi gathers herself again around your cock. Tighter. Triumphant. She laughs dryly and says, aloof, “good boy.”

-

(Here’s how it goes:

Eunbi has your cock vanished into her cleavage, again, and every soft slide of her breasts coaxes a reaction out of you - some quiet, others louder - coaxes more precum from where your cock is aching, leaking. She adjusts her fingers, moves her palms in further, makes her movements more precise, faster, tighter- 

It’s probably not a good sign of mental hygiene that you’re wilting so fast, that you’ve given her so much power so quickly, but the way she has her tits around you is fucking staggering.

“Aw, don’t worry, I’ll make you cum so fucking hard.” Eunbi moves her tits up your shaft. Lets them fall again. “Just relax for me.”

Her dark hair is falling slightly out of place over her ears as she looks down and presses her out tongue out, licking gently at where you’re appearing over and over from her soft breasts. Oh, she knows exactly what she’s doing, you think, even though there’s not an ounce of culpability in her face. You’re so unused to seeing Eunbi appear so guileless that you nearly don’t recognize her. 

But once you feel the smooth skin of her chest become so wet and slippery with her spit, your precum  - once she’s settled into a reliable motion to fuck you with - her eyes lift their focus from what’s just beneath her chin. Get themselves fixed right on you. 

“It feels so good doesn’t it?” The smirk that finds her mouth is lethal. “C’mon. I know you want to cum.”

You can only nod, breath panting.

“Cum on these perfect tits, baby. Cum for me.” Her brow is cocked, voice lilting straight into seduction. “Cum-”

Eunbi’s name sticks to the roof of your mouth as you shoot a rope of cum past her collarbone. You send more all over her chest, hot and sticky and shimmering in pale white, and as soon as she slowly slides her chest up again, you drain your balls into the warm wrap of her tits. A truly satisfying mess. 

You stare for a moment, wondering, if she’ll open her mouth and swallow you again - all given the way she’s looking at your cock, hungry. But she simply tilts her chin and lets your cum splash onto her neck.

She has her hands pumping you lazily against her clavicle, cooing while she gently fuck out the final, tired vestiges of your orgasm with little flicks of her wrist: “oh, there, look at all that, and it’s all for me.”

Once your knees stop shaking and your breath starts to level - once Eunbi releases you from her warm, wet cleavage - she draws a shiver out of you with her tongue, run up the length of your sensitive cock, and she’s left kneeling there, covered in your cum, with her palms upturned like she’s waiting for someone to give her a towel. It’s you, and it’s her, and there’s something about the image of your cum splattered all over her chest, shining and slippery between her perfect tits. You get your hands on her waist immediately, pulling her up into your lap, her slick, sticky chest sliding against yours, and you devour her mouth greedily, licking hungrily past her lips.

“You are something else,” you say finally, now sunk back into the couch to fully take Eunbi in. “All sorts of party tricks.”

Eunbi preens, utterly satisfied with herself, and she reaches down behind her to your cock, aching in pained pleasure, aching for more. You flirt with the heat that radiates from behind her underwear, grinding against where she’s become hot and wet and needy. She laughs, and the sound turns to a pretty little sigh after she pulls aside her panties and seats herself onto your cock. 

“Oh, you have no idea,” she says, and she starts to move.)

-

It’s never supposed to become a habit. It’s never supposed to be anything at all.

At first? Once a month, and it’s unprompted; then it’s biweekly, then it’s once a week, then it ends up biweekly again in the opposite direction; there are these little text messages back and forth that you’re learning to decipher - hey, they usually start, you up? or you wanna help me move some furniture? or this is crazy, but i cooked way too much ramen? or been horny all day, so like, come over and fuck me? 

Some of them, you puzzle out, are easier to decipher than others. And falling comfortably into that category are the nudes she sends you in the middle of a fucking workday: 

Eunbi’s standing with the backside of her unfathomable figure facing the bathroom mirror, denim cut offs slipping down past her thighs-

(Fuck. Shit. You drop your phone and it lands face down in a way that makes you scared to check for damages. Luckily, it is unscathed. Mostly.)

-denim cut offs slipped down past the cheeks of her ass. Her torso is twisted in profile, a white linen shirt draped up over her shoulders for ceremonial purposes, gaping open at the front in an effort to cover nothing at all. Underneath that is a plaid swimsuit top for god knows what reason - a pair of large silver hoop earrings, perfectly done eyelashes, and hair far too styled to be gearing up for a swim - then it’s her thumb, hooked under the string that looks to barely be holding the tiny thing together. The picture is taken at nearly the precise moment: she’s pulling up on the bikini top, to the point that her tits look ready to fall out and let gravity return them whence they came. 

How she managed it, you’ll never know, but it’s got fantasies come to life immediately. Eunbi whimpering and coming apart, Eunbi stretched out in that bikini top, Eunbi stretched out without it - you nearly drop the phone again.

The text that follows is shameless, complete with a winking emoji and extra letters in all the right places: maybe tell minju you’ll be home late for dinner.

All of this, and suddenly you’re feeling less oblivious about it. You and Minju are at that point. These are your death throes, a swan song, performative; you’re that kind of couple.

-

You realize there’s this thing that Minju always says. 

You’ll often catch her in passing, between your hectic schedules or in her spot between the cushions of the sofa curled up in a blanket and reading another romance novel. She’ll ask you how your day was, or what it’s going to be, and you’ll tell her what you always tell her.

“Nothing,” she responds as you press a dutiful kiss to her forehead, “I’m just thinking.”

-

But what else is there to say?

There’s Eunbi’s apartment, the usual scene of the crime. There’s the backseat of your car, sometimes the front seat of hers. There’s no lack for nooks and crannies in the production studio. You fuck Eunbi. Eunbi fucks you. All of it rabid and increasingly frequent and most of the time it gets seriously freudian.

“Inside me,” Eunbi gasps, twice. Her chest is flushed, stained again with your cum, sticky strands of it bridging between her tits as they wobble and shake beneath you. It’s all routine, and none of it anything you could ever tire of. The way you’re fucking her, every deliberate thrust something you can hang on to forever - buried inside her hot, tight velvety cunt - it should be aspirational. And you’ve got her here so frequently, so selfishly, so perfectly. With her knees folded up to her shoulders as you ride the motions of the bed springs. 

Maybe it’s curiosity at play, to see how far either of you will go. You’re crushing her in more ways than one. It’s hot and filthy and she’s loving every moment of it. You’re pounding her sopping cunt into a swollen, cummed-in mess - more and more as you fuck her further into the matress. “Do it, baby,” she cries, unashamed, “want you to fill this pretty little cunt again, need you to fuck me, use me, need you to breed me - use this pussy however you want, it’s yours, so cum in me over and over until i’m just your little cumdump and nothing more-”

God, you want to give her everything she wants, all of the time. Your hips ride into her again, deep and making her features skip past all the usual coy expressions. And god, she is so fucking tight - maybe you will.

“Just like that, don’t stop.” Eunbi is panting, nails digging into your shoulder blades, and she holds your face to the crook of her shoulder. Her voice comes out in airy gasps, shaking and quivering as you rock her entire body beneath you. You pound away at her pussy, and you fuck her, and you rail her so reckless she starts to cry out, until she’s begging, pleading for you to fill her pretty little cunt.

Even though you should at least hesitate, you don’t. You can’t. You shouldn’t.

Hips grinding against hers, cunt clenched and dripping onto your cock, you do.

You need her.

-

But what else is there to say? It’s not that you don’t do your fair share of thinking either. Though none of it productive, admittedly. You’ve got all these images, photographically vivid, of Eunbi running through your head. The things you’ve done to her, the things you want to do to her, the things you will do to her. 

It starts to get in the way of your work.

“I’m sorry,” you say, caught daydreaming one day. “Could you repeat that for me?”

Sitting across the table from you is Jo Yuri, a mutual friend. She knows everyone, and she’s on your radio show, talking about relationships. “What I’m saying is this: I’m not sure what it is about men that make them think women are so unsolvable, like we’re constantly changing the rules.”

“They’re not simple,” you offer in contention.

Yuri turns her head onto her hand, adjusting her headphones, and leans into the mic. “They’re not complex either.”

But, they are complex, you think to yourself as Yuri continues on her with her point. They’re complex in the way they want you to touch them, the way they want you to hold them, to kiss them; some of them complex in the way they want you to choke them, slap them, get your mouth on them and make them cum over and over-

“If it’s less subtle than a brick to the face,” Yuri says, gauging your lack of a reaction, “it’s probably for your own good. That’s what I think.”

-

Neither of you cry when Minju breaks up with you on a Friday. You know, like officially. Neither of you shout or throw things or do anything that you could put in a tell-all book in your later years.

So that’s that, is the last thing she says to you.

Whatever the opposite of cathartic is - that’s the vibe.

Her publicist finally sends a letter to Dispatch. Apparently the time is right. Or she’s stopped caring. You don’t know. The article that ultimately arrives doesn’t drag you through the mud, but you don’t come out looking all that great either. And as it turns out, surprisingly, the most tragic part about being dumped on a Friday, aside from the fact that every fool that is doom scrolling twitter knows about it, is it’s impossible to get new furniture delivered until the following Monday.

“Jesus,” Eunbi says, sliding past you and into your near empty apartment. “This place is super depressing.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” you say, tepid. “There’s been photographers watching the door to the lobby for hours.”

“I was just passing by. Saw the lights were on.”

“Yeah, well, I mean I’m here.”

“I see that.” Eunbi smiles simply. “Was all the furniture hers?”

“We replaced a lot of stuff as time went on. Didn’t match her decor.” You lean against the door frame. “Or so I’m told.”

Eunbi does a spin in your living room, finger to her chin. “Looks like she left you a coffee table.” 

“The movers said it didn’t fit in the truck.”

“Ah.” Eunbi crosses her arms, and the quiet smile on her face grows just an inch. “Serendipitous, ain’t it?”

-

“Hey,” Eunbi says, from the passenger seat of your car. “Would you say… are you feeling anger?”

“No.”

She taps away at her phone in a few more moments of silence. The turn signal’s click click click punctuating each one, semi-dramatically.

“Hey,” she says again, turning toward you.

“What?”

“How about this, are you feeling depression.”

You pause before you answer. “No.”

Her mouth finds a subtle twist, almost like she’s pouting. “Are you feeling, I dunno, bargaining?”

“I’m not in grief, Eunbi, if that’s what you’re working toward.”

She sinks into her seat, disappointed somehow.

“Oh, that’s the first step by the way: denial.” Eunbi unclicks her seatbelt, and leans over the console as you pull up in front of a hotel. “This article says that soon the emotions you’ve been hiding will begin to rise. You’ll be confronted with a lot of-”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?” she asks, blinking deceptively in an almost comically innocent way.

“Psychoanalyzing.” You shut the car door a little too dramatically to be of any help hammering home your point. “I told you, I’m fine.”

“Fine?” Eunbi murmurs, just low enough for you to catch, “you’re living out of a hotel. And denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

“Why don’t we analyze how you’ve got a real talent for getting under my skin.”

“Oh.” She laughs, eyes bright, cheery. “So we are angry.”

“You might want to be more careful.” You’re wandering into familiar territory here. This thing, the needling, the goading, is it on purpose? Your intuition suggests yes, perhaps. A wealth of experience tells you absolutely.

“Is that so?” she asks, interested and daring and dangerously pretty in the shadows of the parking lot.

“Who knows, maybe I end up getting a little rough with you.”

“Oh darling,” she says, and part of you isn’t too keen on her getting so intimate with you. There’s another part of you that is. “I’m hoping you get a lot rough with me.”

-

The way Eunbi perches inelegantly at the edge of the bed says a lot. Her legs are wide open and she’s grasping backward at a set of pristine hotel sheets, cumming over and over on your fingers, maybe a little too easily. She’s even giving you those eyes, watery and irresistable. Of course you’re past all that, well familiar with the act, how deceitful it is of her to act so innocent.

So you bring your mouth onto her pussy and make her do it again. Telling yourself it’s what she deserves.

In fact, when the barrage of oh god’s and moaning and panting finally subsides, she ends up laughing, bubbly cute, in exactly the way you’ve grown fond of. It’s almost strange, you think, to be so used to the sound. But when Eunbi finally uncovers her face from her hands, her expression is pointedly not amused, all need and lust and want - she’s not playing around - simply the way your name comes off her tongue could make you melt. “How do you want me?” she asks, “you can’t just leave me like this.”

Fuck, how don’t you want her? It might have been careless, giving someone like you creative liberty - you’re imaging everything. You want her on her knees, you want her ass in your hands, you want her riding you, beneath you; there’s a million and one things you’re thinking about her tits alone. Then there’s the other liberty. That you’re not checking over your shoulder, worrying, anxious, that kernel of shame hidden away somewhere inside you no longer growing as you get your cock inside her. You’ll make her scream your name, beg you to cum. She’s yours, and you’ll remind her who she belongs to. You’ll take all the time you need. 

“Stand up,” you end up telling her, and after one of those liquid thoughts finally coalesces into something more rigid, “over by the window.”

“Yes sir,” Eunbi says, huffing a smug laugh. Though whatever faux confidence she thought she discovered vanishes without a trace considering her knees are already wobbling, barely able to support her. Some part of her must be able to sense it: you’re worked up, feeling something. She likes you that way. Likes what it makes you do to her. The fact is, to be truly content - being held down and pounded into, filled so full and fucked apart - it’ll take just a press of her thumb on the scale. 

See, Eunbi knows you’ve been holding back. Knows you’ve been flirting with the boundaries she’s dared you to cross. With a little encouragement, she knows you will. 

You saw this coming. And to be frank, you’re going to ruin her.  

“Take your shirt off,” you say, slipping seamlessly into instruction, “socks, underwear, strip.”

It is breathtaking, the way Eunbi ultimately turns her figure around against the pane, hands running up the glass and stretching above her head, ass poked out and shimmying her hips. She’s right there, waiting for you to grab hold of her, to press kisses into her shoulders, her spine, to pump your cock into her, to cum in her deeper and deeper-

And with much less to say, she finds that shimmy again, the round of her ass proffering. Her patience waning.

“You fucking better,” she says, and her elbow’s bent, finger’s pulling at her ass cheek. Look, this pussy, it’s yours, no one else’s and you made it so, so wet. You almost can’t believe that she’s even real - all curves and sharp angles in the right places, a face like that - you should be at her feet, worshiping her, and you will, in a way: you’ll grip her wrists tightly into your fist and sink your fingers into her waist until you’ve got her bruising and breaking. And that’s just a scratch at the surface.

Eunbi’s pupils are blown, mouthing into her shoulder, “I need you to fuck me.”

The tension in the room hardly stretches more than a few moments, you’ve got your cock out, you’re slipping into Eunbi’s soaked cunt, pushing deep, thrusting deeper, bottoming out - “you perfect fucking slut, Eunbi, so needy aren’t you? Begging me to breed you over and over-” You’ve spent the last god knows how many many months hiding away and stealing at something you weren’t supposed to have. Spent even longer pining for something you’ve never had at all. Your hips snap again, harsh contact against her ass, skin milky white and soft, unblemished and delicate - and when you settle into this harsh tempo, railing Eunbi up against the window, you figure you’ll address all that. 

See, you’ve got no ticking clock in front of you. Consider how time starts to slip when you’re inside her, seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, you’ll take as much you can: time to bring her her home, keep your cock in her for a day, two days, three days, keep cumming in all her holes-

“Fuck,” Eunbi sputters, arching her back further, tension building in her spine, in her cunt. The reflection in the window shows her bottom lip start to tremble, and she opens her mouth, repeating it, like it’s all she can remember how to say. “Fuck, fuck, fuck-”

You slap her ass, hard. Handprint vibrantly pink and staring back at you. You kiss her shoulders, you pound her little cunt into consummate submission. I want other people to know, Eunbi’s entirely incapable of telling you right now, drool cornering in her lips. Want everyone to know how good you fuck me, how you own me, how I’m your personal cumdump and forever will be.

You mark her up, like she is yours, hand at her neck, in her hair - you start to pull.

“Yes?” How you’re holding her, how you’re fucking her - it’s physically imposing. You’re towering over the woman, face bent upward and reaching further as the grip you’ve stolen of her silky hair only ever tightens. You can kiss her forehead, but you don’t. You tease her instead. “Aw, you’ve got a look on your face like you have something you want to tell me, Eunbi.”

All too simple, your thumb lands on the pucker of her asshole. And she cums, just like that.

It’s unholy. The overstimulation has tears welling in her eyes, gorgeous, wide, glassy and brilliant. She’s not meant to take this kind of treatment. Reverence, adoration, that’s her usual faire. And she can hardly believe when you bring your hand down her ass again - can hardly believe that you’re fucking her within and inch of her life and wrecking her like you are.

Each thrust sends her voice higher and the lines of her body rippling faster, bending further. Its beauty in resonance, profundity in motion: the soft skin of her ass shaking against your hips, tits swinging against the window. Your hand snakes across her flat stomach, feels her panting for breath, traces her ribs and up towards her chest. Those little whines make it out to be something selfish. Mewling gasps for air make it seem like you aren’t giving her exactly what she asked for. As if you’d ever give her anything less. 

Fuck. She’s a hot, moaning mess of a woman. She doesn’t even roll her hips back onto you or fuck herself on your cock; she doesn’t need to. You’re destroying that little pussy, and once you start palming the heavy shape of her breast, you’re letting your fingers sink into all that profundity. 

“Please,” finally slips out of her, though she’s unable to add anything in that thin, wilting voice. There’s plea in it, the sound steeped in protest, in penury, in poverty; you’re fucking her and you’re fucking her apart - cock buried deep in her cunt - you never expected to have to piece her together this early.

“Tell me,” you demand, callous, right at her ear, “please what? Please pound this perfect little pussy of yours until I cum? Please fill you with a hot load of cum because what, you deserve it? Is that you want, Eunbi?”

“Please, cum-” Her words vanish like a hot breath against the glass. She’s blathering, eyes falling half-lidded in this amazingly sexy way that almost feels intentional. “Want to feel you cum. Fill me up with cum, please, please, please-”

“Oh, Eunbi,” you drawl, right into the crook of her neck. It makes her shiver. She’s not a princess, curses woven into her breath, but she’s selfish like one. “I’m not going to cum in this perfect little pussy-”

It all happens so fast: you drag your cock out of her cunt, and if you weren’t pressing your fingers into her waist, holding her tighter, you think she might collapse. Maybe you were closer than you realized, moments from draining your balls in her pussy, because when you lay cushioned between the cheeks of her ass, your cock just starts to spill - hot cum weeping from the tip and making a mess of her soft, creamy skin, over the puffy lips of her pussy, across the tight little rim of her asshole.

“Good girls get bred, Eunbi,” you say, voice drying, sensitive, and so far from where you started. “You told me to be rough with you baby. I’m thinking I might cum in this perfect fucking ass. Should I?”

Eunbi’s face is flush against the glass, hands reaching back in response, spreading herself for you. Some part of her knows what you want, and she knows how bad she wants it too. “Please,” she begs, swallowing down on these hoarse uneven breaths, hiccupping between them - “need it.”

You can feel your tip tease her rim, where she’s still impossibly closed and waiting. The cum leaking from your cock is wet and slick and slippery, and with a fist curled around your shaft, realigned, angled down, you slip in.

There aren’t even words for it, how it all comes together. How she comes apart.

“Fuck,” you breathe out, recognizing Eunbi’s weight shift around you. “I’m going to fucking own this little asshole, Eunbi.”

Eunbi’s responsive mmm runs ragged. Face in profile against the window, tits smashed against the glass, you watch her eyes screw shut and her eyebrows draw together - you think for a moment, as you so often do, that you’re hurting her, blazing past safewords and pressing your cock too deep, too fast into her tight ass. “Go,” she tells you, and without even flinching, gets her fingers underneath where you’re splitting her in two, gets them wet with the slick of her cunt and in between your balls, gently. “Want you, please, this big cock.”

Your eyes water, and you start to thrust.

“Baby,” you whisper into the lobe of her ear. For once it’s all slow, sloppy and soft. It’s sin at your waist, fucking her open slowly, pumping into her ass again and again until it’s all so slick she can take you further. But you’ve got your fingers in her hair, preening loose strands back behind her hair. She’s so pretty all the time, and with her face twisted in unbearable pleasure, she’s outright gorgeous. “So good for me, Eunbi, such a good little cumslut aren’t you?”

Eunbi’s voice crackles into broken whimpers, like her lungs are waterlogged and flooded. She steals a hand away between her thighs, and starts ghosting her fingers over her clit. Anything more than that and she’d probably go up in smoke. (If it’s anything like you, cock pulsing with blood and hot as flame, you are about to lose it.)

“Fuck,” she says, grinding out the consonants in your name like she’s crushing them under a boot, “I can’t believe how good you feel, I can’t, I can’t-”

You knew, had always known, that you had - however subconsciously - enticed fate by letting yourself get to this point. Maybe it’s a perfect slowburn, this history, dotting commas and periods in your memoirs, and here you are, pounding at Eunbi’s asshole so fast that she’s stuttering.

“I can’t, fuck - thank you - fuck - feel you throbbing in my fucking ass - love being your cocksleeve,” she hisses, and her body has practically all but given up, knees buckled out, arm dangling at her side, tears streaming down her cheeks. It’s just that she never expected it either, that you’d be pleasing her by fucking her like a toy, so unrepentant she’s sobbing messy, all sloppy and pleading, more, please, harder, faster.

“You like this cock tearing your ass open, Eunbi?” you ask, pushing the hand she has hidden at her cunt out of the way, “you like being such a perfect slut for my cock, don’t you? You weren’t kidding, you’d let me do anything to you.”

“Please, don’t, you’re gonna make me - again,” she squeals, lip wobbling, mouth hung open. You push her hard against the glass, until she straightens out, and your finger is gliding through the slick of her cunt, knuckles knocking the window and honing in on her swollen clit - you’ll make her scream. “Oh god, fuck, oh god, fuck, fuck, fuck-”

Serendipity is about chance meetings, convenient covers. Life has a way of dropping the world in your lap without you having to do anything. It’s Eunbi’s picture-perfect face, wrecked and twisting as she cums all over your thighs, rolling her hips and fucking her ass onto you - it’s that when she cums with her puckered entrance stuffed full of cock, she squirts everywhere. Lucky, is the watchword you’re sitting on, and of all places, of all people, you’ve been dealt the perfect hand, deck stacked in your favor.

There’s wet splattered all over the window. Stains streaking in the carpet. Dark spots that’ll never fade.  

“Keep fucking me,” Eunbi says, head of jet black hair titled back onto your shoulders, hips twisting slow as she grinds down against your waist, moving enough to make your cock throb and pulse. “Keep fucking me, please, until you fill my ass up all the way. I’m yours.”

Yours, yours, yours, she stammers on, failed and wrecked on your cock. Malleable and pliant. Ruined. 

“This tight little ass of yours, Eunbi,” you mutter, drawing sharp breath after sharp breath, “is fucking unbelievable.”

It’s yours.

Her body twists, torso turns into you, and you get your mouth on hers, moaning and mewling on the same hot, damp air.

“Good girl,” you whisper against her lips, and with a final kiss to her temple, you fuck into her hard - hands snuck up to hold her breasts and keep her still, hips snapping fast, faster, faster-

When you finally explode up into Eunbi’s ass, she makes a noise fucked and faltering even further than you. It’s desperate and debauched and only staunched by the fingers you slip past her lips. She bites down, but you’re too far pitched into the reality of pumping cum past Eunbi’s tight entrance that you can’t be bothered to care.

“Fuck, Eunbi.” Your voice is sneaking through gritted teeth. She’s tiny against you, body slender and hot and milking your cock. A flash of muscle, a quiver, a pucker, and she’s got you reeling. You think about getting your hand around her throat - fucking her again - but the look her face is so pristine and contented. You have her like putty in your hands, like you could bend her, mold her, break her, and when you instead bring her face to yours in this lazy, clumsy kiss, lips sliding and her tongue licking into your mouth, you know you’d never need to.

See, she’s so dismantled, completely stuffed with cock, and still, with it leaking everywhere you can feel it run hot and sticky, it’s perfect. 

The hotel room isn’t big, and until this exact moment, had been so filled with sex that the the sounds of it echoing back and forth make this sudden quiet into a silence puzzlingly calm. Her features relax, into something a little more befitting her reputation. She’s sweaty and wet and you did your part, you fucked her and fucked her up, you realize, she’ll return you the favor later. 

You hold your breath, watching the beauty mark on her cheek raise and lower with every panted-out breath, mesmerized-

And with just the slightest shift, Eunbi’s mouth closes into this tiny, satisfied smile.

“You came inside my ass,” she says out loud. She tries not to laugh, and then she does anyway when you slide your cock out of her. “You just came - in my ass. Look.”

It’s almost unfathomable, that you just fucked her until she was sobbing, pushed your cock into her ass and had her uncoil like she did, the window, the carpet. Like a fucking disaster. It’s almost unfathomable that she’s got her hands spreading her cheeks open toward you and presenting the mess you’d made like it was something to be proud of, and after all that the mood of the moment shifts a little more intimate, a little more sentimental.

“You’re trouble,” you tell her, tilting her chin up under your fingers.

“Right back at you,” she says, and she pitches onto her feet until you kiss her again.

-

(It happens.

Time passes. You work on a new show. You move into a smaller apartment. It reeks of passed time. Maybe it’s the humidity of early sobriety, hanging and palpable. You can hear ticking in clockless rooms here.

It’s been years since Minju dropped the bombshell on the media. You recovered, mostly. Years too since you’ve seen Eunbi.

Sometimes the people you wanted as part of your story are only meant to be a chapter. You could probably stitch that into a frame and sell it to the kind of crowd who’d buy words in a frame.

You don’t.

Instead, you end up a little older, not in any meaningful way. You’re not wiser or any shit like that. Just older.)

-

You interrupt the producer of your current gig, a pretty middling radio show in a pretty mundane time slot. “What do you mean by new cohost? Like I’ll be working with another human being?”

He nods.

“Like every week?”

Nods again.

“Does he have a name?”

“She,” he corrects, writing judiciously at the clipboard permanently in his hands. Scowl on his face, pencil in his ear, clipboard in his hands, that’s how you know he’s in charge. It’s a whole look. He untucks a blank envelope from the disarray of papers in his hands, saying, “she dropped this off for you too.”

You turn it in your hands twice, until you see the cursive penned into the top right corner. Memories, stinging trifling things rush back to you, all at once: you see her face, her eyes are closed, she’s smiling, she’s a thought you’d tucked away for good, and now you’re wading through it like you hadn’t. 

Serendipitous.